Buzzer-beating 3-pointer foils Raiders’ rally in loss to Titans in final pre-Christmas game

MONMOUTH, Ill. — The Quincy Notre Dame boys basketball players are hoping history repeats itself.

Tuesday night’s 52-49 loss to Monmouth-Roseville saddled the Raiders with a 5-4 record heading into the Christmas break. It’s not too different than the 1988-89 QND team which started 8-6, ended up winning a sectional championship and is considered one of the area’s 50 best small-school teams of the last 50 years.

“Our guys read the article about that team and said, ‘That team was 8-6 and look where they got. We can do that as well,’” said QND coach Kevin Meyer, a starter on the 1988-89 team. “They’re still driven. They’ll rally together. I guarantee it. That’s what makes this team special.”

First, the Raiders have to overcome the sting of how the loss to the Titans happened.

Down as many has 14 points in the first half, QND systematically chiseled away at the deficit until making it a one-point game with 1:25 to play in regulation when Charlie Lavery buried a 3-pointer from the left corner.

Despite going empty on their next three possessions, the Raiders trailed only 49-47 when Jackson Stratton was fouled with 9.2 seconds remaining. He missed the front end of a 1-and-1 situation, but Braden Sheffield grabbed the offensive rebound and made the putback to tie the game.

“The whole time I’m thinking, ‘We’re going to win this. We’re going to win this. We’re going to get a stop and win this,’” Meyer said. “In the worst case, we were going to overtime and we were going to be fine. And then they make that one.”

The Titans called timeout with 3.8 seconds remaining and drew up a play for a left sideline inbounds play from three-quarters court. The inbounds pass went to Connor Thompson, who picked up his dribble near midcourt but flung a pass to C.J. Johnson along on the far right wing.

Johnson released his shot with two-tenths of a second remaining and buried it for the walk-off victory.

“We didn’t lose it on a buzzer-beater,” Meyer said. “We can’t play from behind like we did.”

The Raiders allowed 26 points in the first quarter as the Titans, who came in shooting 29 percent from 3-point but made five treys in the first quarter. Despite holding Monmouth to six points in the second quarter, the Raiders managed just six points themselves and went to halftime trailing 32-24.

The Raiders battled in the second half, trimming the Titans’ advantage to six by the end of the third quarter and making it a one-possession game three minutes into the fourth quarter. They simply could never take the lead.

“We have to bring that battle the first three minutes,” Meyer said. “One of the guys in the locker room said we have to start faster. We got the ball in transition and did some things really well tonight, but we have to get the defensive side of things started faster as well. We were one step off of our rotation tonight.”

Jake Wallingford led the Raiders with 12 points, while Sheffield finished with nine and Jackson Stratton had eight. QND is off until Monday when it plays Rock Falls at noon in the opening round of the State Farm Holiday Classic in Bloomington.

“There were a couple of things we could have controlled — a better possession here, a better defensive rotation there — that would have won us that ballgame,” Meyer said. “We will work on that and get better at that. These guys are determined and will battle.”