Four-star rating: QND soccer team scores three times in second half to upend Althoff and win Class 1A state championship

EAST PEORIA, Ill. — Four days ago, Tanner Anderson sat his bag down on the grass, laid the super-sectional plaque on top of it and stopped to oblige a media request.

Quincy Notre Dame boys soccer coach Greg Reis suggested he’d take the plaque to the bus to expedite the Raiders’ departure, but Anderson intervened.

“I’m going to carry it onto the bus to ‘Eye of the Tiger,’” he said.

Reis laughed and allowed his senior captain to stick with what was becoming a postseason tradition.

So there wasn’t a doubt who would be cradling the Class 1A state championship following QND’s 4-1 victory over Belleville Althoff on Saturday night and who would be the last one boarding the bus. In fact, Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” was blaring and the bus was rocking when Anderson entered the doors.

At that moment, the celebration was in full effect.

The Raiders (19-6-2) captured the fourth state championship in program history — that means adding a fourth star to the team’s crest — by outscoring the Crusaders 3-0 in the second half at the EastSide Centre’s Corwin Clatt Field.

“It’s something you dream of as a kid,” said Anderson, who scored the first of QND’s three second-half goals and will graduate as the program’s leader in career goals. “I can’t really put into words right now how I’m feeling or how this team feels. 

“To be able to do it with this group of guys — 10 seniors — and for us to go out like this as state champs, I can’t put it into words right now.”

Althoff (27-2) seemed to be the prohibitive favorite, coming into the championship game on a 26-game win streak and having beaten defending Class 1A state champion Wheaton Academy 4-1 in Friday’s semifinals. The Crusaders were the state runners-up last season and had overwhelmed their postseason opponents this season with a physical brand of soccer.

“We knew it was going to be tough, and we knew it was going to get a little chippy,” QND senior midfielder John Drew said. “We knew if we matched their physicality and intensity we would be able to be in the game and could win.”

Drew helped set the tone, man-marking Althoff’s Jake Pollock, who had 26 goals and 20 assists coming into the final four. Pollock was limited to two shots and nothing that would have made QND goalkeeper Max Frericks sweat.

“I tried to take him out of the game as best I could,” Drew said.

The fact QND pressed back when Althoff struggled to engage led to the first goal.

Drew took possession in the middle of the field and chipped the ball toward the top of the box, where QND’s Deakon Schuette applied pressure. An Althoff defender tried to head the ball away, but instead headed it back past the goalkeeper and into the net for an own goal that have the Raiders the lead with 3:18 remaining in the first half.

“To Deakon’s credit, he pressed the guy,” Reis said. “He played it back and it was a mistake.”

Although the Crusaders tied the game two minutes later on Hank Gomric’s header off a corner kick, the Raiders went to halftime tied at 1.

“They kind of gifted us one at the beginning, but a goal is a goal no matter how it goes in,” Anderson said.

Confident in how they had played, the Raiders applied pressure at the start of the second half and it resulted in Leo Cann getting behind the defense and attacking Crusaders goalkeeper Andrew Weir 1-on-1. Weir fouled Cann, giving the Raiders a penalty kick, but Weir also was assessed a red card. It forced Althoff to play a man down the final 32 minutes.

Anderson made the PK to give QND a 2-1 lead.

“We did a great job coming out in the second half,” Reis said. “We got after it.”

With 25 minutes to play, QND extended the lead when Anderson carried the ball to the left endline, crossed it to Jacob Vincent, who flicked the ball to Cole Henkenmeier. The freshman forward buried his shot for a 3-1 lead.

Schuette scored with 14 minutes to play to make it a three-goal lead, although officials gathered to discuss the goal’s validity over concerns the Raiders had 12 players on the field. After a lengthy discussion, the goal was allowed.

It was part of the concern with how the game was officiated. Althoff finished the game with eight field players and QND had just nine after both teams saw players ejected for receiving a second yellow card. The IHSA official stat sheet lists seven yellow cards being issued, but at least three are missing.

“All due respect to Quincy Notre Dame. They have a great team. They won. They beat us. They deserve the championship,” Althoff coach Skip Birdsong told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “But that was one of the worst officiated games I’ve ever seen. Just a terrible job.”

Staying composed in the chaos gave the Raiders the upperhand.

“It was a big deal for us to keep our composure and to keep playing the game and not let it get into our head,” QND senior center back Jake Hoyt said. “There were times there I thought a couple of us were going to lose our head. We leaned on each other to keep our heads in it and to keep in the game.”

It came back to understanding expectations.

“We knew they were going to be physical,” Hoyt said. “We knew it was going to be a battle from start to finish, so we had to match the physicality and the intensity. That’s what we did and we came out on top.”

When choosing “Eye of the Tiger” to be your theme song, there is no other way.

“I’m proud of the guys for how they got this thing accomplished,” Reis said.