Sluggish start, stellar finish defensively enables Blue Devils to dispatch Bombers

QUINCY — Quincy High School’s girls basketball team received the perfect wake-up call Wednesday night.

A bit painful, but perfect.

“We came out flat, and Macomb punched us right in the mouth,” Blue Devils coach Brad Dance said.

Macomb dominated the first quarter, racing to a 16-9 lead, but those opening eight minutes wound up serving as a much-needed reality check for QHS.

Quincy rebounded from its sluggish start to completely overwhelm Macomb during the final three periods, finishing with a 50-30 victory at the QHS gym.

Jada Brown, the Blue Devils’ 5-foot-11 sophomore center who led all scorers with 14 points, just shook her head afterward when quizzed about the first period.

“In that first quarter, we had a lot of bad shooting … and we were also probably looking ahead to Galesburg,” said Brown, who also contributed 12 rebounds for her second double-double of the season.

QHS plays host to Galesburg in a key Western Big 6 Conference matchup at 7 p.m. Thursday. Galesburg is 8-1 overall and 3-0 in the conference, while Quincy is 5-2 overall and 2-2 in the WB6.

As disturbing as the first quarter was to watch for Dance, the final 24 minutes more than offset that ragged start. 

“We gave up 16 points in the first quarter, and then only gave up 14 points the rest of the game,” Dance said.

Defense was again a major factor for the Blue Devils. QHS has now held four of its seven opponents to 30 points or less, surrendering an average of 30.3 points over its first seven games.

“Over the last three quarters, we stepped it up defensively and realized we needed to do more than shoot 3-pointers,” said Brown, who has scored in double figures in all seven of the Devils’ games and leads QHS with a 17.7 scoring average.

Myley Longcor (12), Madelyn Hamby (11) and Khloe Nicholson (8) combined for an additional 31 points for Quincy. Longcor (11.9) is second to Brown in scoring.

Longcor swished four of the Blue Devils’ nine 3-pointers and Nicholson, a 6-foot-1 freshman, seconded Brown with nine rebounds, plus blocking six shots and handing out five assists. Brown and Nicholson combined to lead QHS to a 36-26 margin on the boards.

Eight of Quincy’s nine varsity players are either sophomores or freshmen, an anomaly that does not concern Dance.

“These girls have all played a lot of basketball,” Dance said. “To me, they’re like juniors and seniors out there. I don’t even worry about them being so young.”

But …

“It’s still a learning process,” he said.

Macomb dropped to 7-3 and has lost three straight to Quincy since the schools resumed their series during the 2022-23 season.

“That first quarter we shot the ball well, but Quincy has such long and lanky athletes,” said Macomb coach Jackson Kane, who credited Quincy’s defense with helping turn the tide starting in the second quarter.

Quincy held Macomb to its lowest point total of the season, but Kane was far from discouraged.

“I’m not much for morale victories or anything like that, but two of our three losses have been to state-ranked teams (Central-Southeastern and Rock Island Alleman) and the other is to Quincy, which is a very nice team and a lot bigger school than us,” Kane said.

Kylie Robinson (12) was Macomb’s lone double-figure scorer. The Bombers managed just three field goals in the second half.