50 After 50: Tall, talented senior class carries No. 47 Raiders to super-sectional

No. 47 — 1988-89 Quincy Notre Dame

The Illinois High School Association created a second class for boys basketball for the 1971-72 school year. The 2020-21 season would have been the 50th year of the boys basketball small-school tournament. Muddy River Sports is celebrating 50 years of small-school boys basketball by ranking the 50 best teams in Adams, Brown, Pike and Hancock counties since 1972.

QUINCY — After 15 years of trying, the Quincy Notre Dame boys basketball team was primed to return to the Class A state basketball tournament in 1989.

The Raiders were long and talented. Six seniors — John Frankenhoff, Bill Siebers, Shawn Schneider, Kevin Meyer, Brian Dreyer and Mike Ridder — were all between 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-6. They had won 18 games during the previous season.

It also was going to be the final season on the bench for Bob Kies. In the previous seven seasons with Kies in charge, the Raiders had won 136 games and five regionals — but not one sectional title.

“The expectations were very high, just because of the people we had back,” Frankenhoff said. “We were quite big. Really big.”

Frankenhoff led the team in scoring at 12.5 points and 8.4 rebounds per game, while Schneider added 12.2 points and 6.9 rebounds. What made the Raiders difficult to beat was their scoring balance. All six seniors, who got most of the minutes, were capable of being the leading scorer each night.

The Raiders also survived a brutal early season schedule, going 8-6 before Christmas while playing Class AA teams in 10 of their first 14 games. They knocked off Liberty 58-55 in overtime to win the regional, avenged an earlier loss by beating a two-loss Dallas City team 69-64 in overtime and then beat Beardstown 80-67 to win the sectional for the first time in 1975.

All that was left standing in the path of a state tournament bid was North Greene, a surprising super-sectional qualifier which had upset No. 1-ranked Piasa Southwestern and No. 4-ranked Jacksonville Routt on its way to Macomb.

However, it wasn’t meant to be. North Greene led by as many as 14 points in the first half and knocked off the Raiders 66-59. QND finished the season with a 21-9 record.

“In my opinion, I think the bigger floor (at Western Illinois University) was a factor,” Frankenhoff said. “It was just a bad night or whatever you want to call it. I was a mess myself. I’ll be honest, that was hardest things I’d been through my whole life.”

Raiders fans had to wait 10 more years for a team to reach the state tournament. 

Frankenhoff, now the systems administrator for the Quincy/Adams County 911 Center and a long-time member of the Quincy Park Board, only remembers the good times these days.

“We just had a great group of guys. We had a lot of fun,” he said. “The six of us got along, played well and were unselfish. Those friendships have lasted to this day. 

“Personally, when I think about the games, the wins or losses, that’s not even all that important. To me. It’s the friendships. Every one of those guys, to this day, even if I don’t see them on a regular basis, you just have that bond forever.”