Fit to be tied: QHS, QND dig in defensively as boys soccer showdown ends in scoreless draw

QUINCY — In a sport where the standard dimensions of the goal are sizable — 24 feet wide and 8 feet high — every inch still matters.

Wednesday night, the diameter of the goal posts mattered most.

A little more than six minutes into the second half of the boys soccer crosstown showdown at Flinn Stadium, Quincy Notre Dame sniper Tanner Anderson shook free of a Quincy High School defender, played the ball to his left foot and rifled a shot toward the far post.

The ball hit the round post, which measures 5 inches in diameter, relatively square and ricocheted out.

An inch or so to the left and the ball caroms into the goal.

“You just have to hope it goes wide or it takes the right bounce off the post,” QHS junior goalkeeper Lucas Shepherd said. “If it doesn’t, you’re screwed.”

In this case, the post served as the goalkeeper’s best friend.

“I was very thankful for that,” Shepherd said. “I was hoping that ball would not go in.”

Nothing else went in either. Six weeks after the teams combined for seven goals in the first leg of the city series, the rematch ended in a scoreless draw. Still, the matchup created the same intensity and griping intrigue the high-scoring affair had.

“Getting down to the closing minutes, nobody wants to lose,” QND senior defender Colin Kurk said. “It’s a grind. Eighty minutes is what most everyone played out there. You just have to keep working, and we were hoping we could get the goal. Unfortunately, neither of us could.”

But not for lack of trying.

“There was a lot of urgency to get the ball in the back of the net,” QND senior midfielder John Drew said. “We kept our composure well and kept moving forward well.”

It allowed the Raiders (12-6-1) to maintain possession in the attacking third down to the final minutes.

“It was pretty tense toward the end,” Shepherd said. “We had a lot of fouls, and it was getting pretty rough. The last attack they had at the end kind of scared me. I kept cool and was like, ‘I’ll get this no matter what.’”

He was forced to maintain that approach the entire game.

Although the first half was largely played in the midfield, the Raiders put together a string of corner kicks in the final 20 minutes that required the Blue Devils’ Nolan Fleer and Trace Routh to be aggressive in getting the ball cleared out of the box.

In the first 15 minutes of the second half, the pressure mounted.

Anderson hit the post. His header four minutes later went wide of the right post. Leo Cann had attempts go high and wide as well.

“We were right there,” Kurk said. “We had chances. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t put those chances away. There were a couple that were rolling around in the middle that we wish we could have back, but move on and build on it for the postseason.”

The Blue Devils (11-6-1) have the same thing in mind.

This was their sixth straight game without a loss — they came in having won five in a row — and proved to be a matter of survival. After beating Geneseo 3-2 on the road Tuesday night to win a share of the Western Big 6 Conference championship, the Blue Devils didn’t get home until around midnight.

Couple that with a myriad of injuries — Andrew Brown is out for the season with a broken leg and Evan Altman went down in the first half with a twisted ankle — and getting healthy and rested before the postseason is essential. Yet, the Blue Devils still found a way to post a shutout.

“I’m very proud of our defense,” Fleer said. “Everyone was on the same level and everybody had each other’s back.”

Notre Dame exhibited the same qualities.

“I think having the shutout is huge for us,” Drew said. “We played really well defensively, and we had our chances up top. Offensively, we were right there. We had chances. Not many teams are going to be able to shut us out like that. 

“So if we keep getting shutouts, we’re going to win games in the postseason.”