‘We were kind of shocked’: Simeon’s blitz puts QND on its heels, leads to lopsided loss for Raiders

QUINCY — The first six minutes the Quincy Notre Dame boys basketball team played against Chicago Simeon in the Quincy Shootout on Friday were as close to as perfect as Raiders coach Greg Altmix could have asked for.

“If we can do that for 32 minutes, there’s no team in Class 2A we can’t play with,” Altmix said.

Then the wheels fell off.

The Raiders took a 9-5 lead with two minutes left in the first quarter before the Wolverines cranked out a 14-0 run to close the quarter and never looked back, doubling up the Raiders 66-33 at The Pit.

Those first six minutes were great, but Altmix said sustaining that level of play is the most important thing.

“We need to be able to do it for 32 minutes,” Altmix said.

The final three points of that 9-5 start came in rather unusual fashion. As QND got into its offense, Raiders senior guard Beau Eftink set a screen for Jace Allensworth at the top of the key.

Then Eftink blew a tire.

“I went off a screen and the guy followed me so I thought Beau was going to be open, and he fell on his butt,” Allensworth said.

Allensworth’s pass was right on the money, though.

“I went down, and I just saw the ball falling into my lap,” Eftink said.

When two defenders swarmed Eftink on the ground, he saw Allensworth spring free at the 3-point line just a few steps from where Allensworth had just passed Eftink the ball.

“I was just like, ‘Oh, Jace is open,’ so I just threw it to him,” Eftink said.

Allensworth caught Eftink’s pass in rhythm and knocked down the 3-pointer to give the Raiders a four-point lead, but those were the final points QND scored before Simeon’s 14-point blitz to close the quarter.

“I hit that three and we had the momentum for a second, then they went on a run,” Allensworth said. “We kind of lost our intensity and effort there for a while.”

Simeon took its first lead at 11-9 on a Kamari Hamlin 3-pointer from the left wing with 59 seconds left. The Wolverines then converted three straight Raiders turnovers and a Carter Miller missed layup into eight points in the quarter’s final 45 seconds to take a 19-9 lead.

“We made some untimely mistakes,” Altmix said. “Simeon is obviously a great team. They’re going to create mistakes, they’re going to create turnovers because they are good. We can’t have the unforced errors — not being in the right spot, not making the right cut, not boxing our guy out. There were times where we had three or four guys doing the right thing, but one or two didn’t.”

When Lorenzo Shields drained a 3-pointer to stretch the Wolverines’ lead to 31-16 with 3:43 left in the second quarter, that marked 31 points by the Wolverines in a quarter’s worth of time after QND held Simeon scoreless for the first 4:24 of the game.

“We just got blown away and got in our heads a little bit,” Allensworth said.

It was all a whirlwind to Eftink.

“We were kind of shocked,” Eftink said. “I looked up at the scoreboard and didn’t realize it was like that.”

The Wolverines’ lead grew to 36-19 at halftime, and a 23-8 third quarter extended that advantage to 59-27 and put the running clock into effect in the fourth quarter.

“This is a great game to learn from, accept the challenge and make yourself a better player and a better team,” Altmix said.

If the Raiders can somehow bottle up those first six minutes, Eftink likes the Raiders’ chances come playoff time.

“If we can get four quarters like those first six minutes, then I think we have a really good shot of going deep in the postseason,” Eftink said.

QND (10-7) will hit the road for a West Central Conference game against Beardstown at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Simeon (13-5) will wrap up its visit to the Gem City when they face Millard North (Neb.) at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Blue Devil Gym.