Blue Devils show growth, improvement in upending Dragons in regional semifinals

QUINCY — Quincy High School volleyball coach Kate Brown collected herself, looked out on the court at the QHS gym and broke into a wide smile.

“This was a team we haven’t seen all season,” Brown said of her sixth-seeded Blue Devils, who moments earlier pulled off an upset of fourth-seeded Pekin in the Class 4A regional semifinals. “That’s the first time I’ve seen them really want a game and come out and play as a team. To finish the full game, that’s the first time we’ve done that.

“That was a huge hump that we needed to accomplish as a young team.”

After dropping the opening set 25-19, the Blue Devils stormed back to win the second set 25-17 and the decisive set 25-18 to earn a spot in Thursday’s 6 p.m. regional title game at the QHS gym. The Blue Devils (18-17) will meet top-seeded Normal Community (24-12). Normal beat seventh-seeded United Township 25-14, 25-10 in Tuesday’s other semifinal.

QHS won its first regional match since 2017. The Blue Devils are looking for their first regional championship since 2010.

Tuesday’s match showed a young Blue Devils team just how far they’ve come since the start of the season. During the opening weekend of the season, Pekin came to Quincy and swept the Blue Devils in two games at the QHS Early Bird Invitational. The Dragons (21-14) wound up losing in the championship match to Quincy Notre Dame.

Fast forward nearly two months and the Dragons looked like they were well on their way to victory after dominating the opening set. Pekin’s front-line duo of seniors Graci Guenther and Zoe Nizzia were too much for the Blue Devils to handle. Mix in their hard-hitting with a number of Blue Devil errors and Quincy was never really in the first set. 

Things flipped in the second set. Quincy’s young front line began to go hit-for-hit with Pekin’s more experienced group. Freshman Madison Loos, who was just called up to varsity earlier this month, proved to be a problem in the middle. Two straight kills by sophomore Ayanna Douglas gave the Blue Devils a 13-12 lead. The first kill gave the Blue Devils a side out and put the ball in the hands of senior Naveah Baker.

Baker’s lefty serve stumped the Pekin defense. She rattled off nine straight points. Pekin subbed out twice in the spot where Baker placed many of her knuckle balls.

“I go for an angle serve to the deep corners, which a lot of people can’t get,” Baker said. 

Pekin certainly had no answer for it. The Dragons failed to mount any serious comeback when they finally got the ball out of Baker’s hands down 21-13.

The third set was tight early. A kill by Loos gave Quincy a 8-7 lead, one they would never relinquish. More of Quincy’s young nucleus delivered up front. Sophomore Kaley Summers had all three of her kills in the third set, while classmate Lydia Peters had two kills in the set.

Pekin made a number of hitting errors in the third set and its passing was not as crisp as it was in the opening set. Quincy built a 24-17 cushion on a Summers kill. A Douglas smash ended the match, setting off a wild celebration on the Quincy side.

Senior libero Carley Owsley said the Blue Devils were nothing like the team Pekin beat earlier in the season. 

“They thought we were some underdog team, and we wanted to prove them wrong tonight,” Owsley said. “We have a whole different lineup. We’ve learned to pick on weaknesses on the other side of the court. We hit our serving zones, hit open spots on the court.”

Douglas finished with a match-high nine kills for QHS. Peters and Loos added five kills each. Six different players recorded at least two kills for the Blue Devils. Guenther had eight kills and Nizzia added six to lead the Dragons.

Quincy will face a Normal Community team looking to win a regional so that it can play on its home court at the sectional next week. The Ironmen had little trouble with United Township (2-26), finishing their match in about a half hour.

The Blue Devils head into the title match believing anything is possible.

“If we come out as hard as we did this one, we’ve got a chance,” Baker said.