Blue Devils find way to heat up offense, rally in second half to beat Panthers in WB6 play

QUINCY — Brad Dance didn’t have an explanation for the Quincy High School girls basketball team’s inability to make a shot the first 10 minutes, 35 seconds of Thursday night’s Western Big 6 Conference game.

He figures the snow might be the case.

“We had a shootaround this morning, basically a light practice for about an hour,” the QHS head coach said. “I don’t know if it was not being in school and not having the same routine. It could have been. Our JV team came out the same. They started off real slow and then they played great the last 2½ quarters.”

The varsity crew mimicked that plan.

Trailing 10-0 after the first quarter and and 16-4 before making their second field goal of the game, the Blue Devils kept United Township within reach at halftime before making the first three baskets of the second half. QHS rallied to tie the game by the end of the third quarter and pulled away down the stretch for a 45-37 victory at the QHS gym.

“It wasn’t that we passed up good opportunities to score in the first half,” Dance said. “We took the opportunities tonight. We did a much better job of looking to shoot. We just didn’t make many shots early.

“But early in the third quarter, we got a couple steals that led to some easy looks. We got to the line. We hit a couple big threes. We just played better offensively.”

And defensively.

“The girls were frustrated at halftime because we’ve been giving up 30 points a game in the last three games and then we give up 22 in the first half,” Dance said. “They were a little upset. We talked about that at halftime and we end up giving up 12 in the second half until they hit that 20-some footer at the end.”

The Panthers built their lead by owning the glass. They grabbed seven offensive rebounds in the first half and knocked down four 3-pointers. 

Meanwhile, the Blue Devils (10-8, 6-6 WB6) missed their first 11 shots, didn’t score until Taylor Fohey made a couple of free throws 53 seconds into the second quarter and didn’t make a field goal until Asia Seangmany hit a pull-up jumper on the right wing with 5:25 to go in the first half.

The Blue Devils finished the first half 4 of 20 from the field. The Panthers were 9 of 25 from the field and found ways to beat the Blue Devils’ 1-3-1 zone.

“We were a little more on our heels and letting them come at us instead of us attacking them,” Dance said.

A second-quarter adjustment changed that, and the offense getting going gave the Blue Devils a boost. The game was tied twice in the third quarter and two more times in the fourth quarter before Leila Dade made two free throws with four minutes to play gave QHS the lead for good.

On the next possession, Leah Chevalier drilled a 3-pointer from the left wing in front of a raucous QHS student cheering section that sparked an 11-2 run to secure the victory.

Seangmany led the Blue Devils with 16 points, while Dade and Fohey had nine apiece.