Pieper’s presence looms large as Raiders fend off Panthers in second half

PALMYRA, Mo. — Tristan Pieper never flinched.

After Pieper, a junior forward on the Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball team, watched the Raiders’ 27-8 lead over Palmyra dwindle to 31-27 thanks to a 16-point second quarter by Panthers point guard Clare Williams capped off by a buzzer-beating half court shot, she knew the Raiders would respond accordingly.

“We’re a strong group,” Pieper said. “Good players on other teams don’t affect how we play.”

Just like they started the game, the Raiders got the ball to Pieper in the post on their first possession of the second half. Pieper scored, and from that point forward, the Raiders seized the momentum and pulled away to a 58-44 victory Tuesday at Palmyra High School.

“We were a couple possessions from putting that game away (in the second quarter),” said Raiders coach Eric Orne, whose team is ranked fifth in Class 3A. “Clare Williams is a heck of a ballplayer. She got loose and the game changed. We were now the team that was being hunted. It was a good experience for us, but at the same time, we can’t let that happen in the postseason.”

Even Williams’ halfcourt shot did not phase the Raiders.

“It looked good out of her hands,” Orne said. “Honest to God I said, ‘That’s in,’ and boy, it just rattled right in. It was pure. Our backs were literally up against the wall there. We had to come out and respond after that because that was huge momentum for them and gave them the belief that they could take us down.”

Pieper simply shook it off.

“It’s never fun to see a shot like that against your team, but stuff like that happens and we just have to work back from it,” Pieper said.

Williams could feel the tides turning in the Panthers’ direction after her buzzer-beater. 

They just did not turn enough.

“It was great to bring that energy into halftime, but we just didn’t have enough to get through the fourth quarter,” Williams said.

Junior guard Ari Buehler’s layup with 4:11 left in the third quarter pushed the Raiders’ lead to double figures for the first time in the second half, and QND kept Palmyra, ranked 10th in Class 3, at arm’s length for the remaining 12 minutes.

“We tried to slow the ball down, calm ourselves down,” Buehler said. “We worked for better shots and worked to make sure we were taking the right shot and not forcing something. This helped with our confidence, like when things aren’t necessarily going our way, we can still work through it and figure it out.”

Pieper scored 10 of her 22 points in the fourth quarter and provided a calming presence for the Raiders down the stretch.

“We knew we had a mismatch with Tristan down low, and we found her often enough that she put us on our back,” Orne said. “When you’re in a big environment like this, and the tides turn, you need somebody to grab the ball, mentally slow down and make a basket for us.”

Williams scored just two points in the second half.

“We got back to (Pieper) settling us down, got some better defensive help and slowed them down,” Orne said. “We made it a lot harder on them in the third and fourth quarter, and then we started separating.”

Palmyra coach Kelsey Stuart was not pleased with how easily and often the Raiders were able to get the ball to Pieper.

“That’s just something we need to do better about,” Stuart said. “We worked on post defense yesterday at practice. I don’t know how often we’ll face a girl that big, but that’s just an area of improvement for us.”

Raiders senior guard Sage Stratton, who scored seven points in the first half and finished with 11, said Pieper’s confidence and assertiveness made life easier for the Raiders.

“She did amazing tonight,” Stratton said. “It was so nice knowing I could just dump it to her and know that she was going to go up and make that basket. Tonight was definitely her night. She had a lot of confidence when she would go up and make that basket.”

The Raiders stretched their lead to as large as 52-36 with 6:26 left in the fourth quarter. The Panthers went on a 7-0 run to narrow that margin to nine with 3:55 remaining, but the Panthers scored just one point after that.

“The last 2 ½ minutes just wasn’t our best play,” Stuart said. “We just got tired and our attitude wasn’t the best, but other than that, I’m really proud of how we played.”

The Raiders (8-0) will take on Troy (Mo.) Buchanan in the Rumble on the River at John Wood Community College on Wednesday, the first of three games QND plays in the event. Palmyra (4-3) will host Unity on Friday before playing West Hancock in the Rumble on the River on Saturday.