Halfway home: Blue Devils hope to make weekend complete with WB6 crown after finishing season sweep of Raiders

QUINCY — Just how much the Quincy High School girls soccer players fully embrace the “do hard better” mantra will become obvious by the time their team bus departs East Moline sometime Saturday afternoon.

Nothing the Blue Devils have faced this regular season will be as hard as playing two emotionally charged games in the span of 18 hours.

And nothing could be better than ending the weekend with a city sweep and a conference crown.

The sweep is secure. Friday night’s 2-1 victory over Quincy Notre Dame at Flinn Stadium marked the second straight year the Blue Devils have swept the two crosstown showdowns.

The crown will be determined by how the Blue Devils play against United Township at 12:30 p.m. Saturday in the defacto Western Big 6 Conference championship game. Both teams are 6-0 in league play, so to the winner go the spoils.

“I trust all my teammates and have full confidence in them to be ready for tomorrow,” QHS senior midfielder Rian Moore said after assisting on one of the Blue Devils’ two goals Friday night. “What we’ve been big on is we want to make a name for ourselves.

“We want to leave the program better than it was. Sweeping QND two years in a row shows we were here and who we are. Another conference title will do the same thing.”

Knowing the WB6 title showdown loomed didn’t alter Friday night’s effort.

“We played our hearts out and we need to carry that over to tomorrow,” said QHS senior midfielder Bri Lannerd, who scored both of the Blue Devils’ goals. “It’s in the back of your mind, but we try to focus on one game at a time right now. That was our focus. We put everything into this game. We didn’t save anything for tomorrow trying to play cautious.

“We’re going to go home, fuel up and be ready to play again.”

The schedule originally had a 42-hour break between games, but Thursday’s thunderstorms forced the crosstown matchup to be rescheduled. Other dates were considered, but with only a week remaining in the regular season, Friday became the best option, even if it wasn’t ideal.

“This is an opportunity to prove ourselves,” Moore said after the Blue Devils improved to 11-4-1. “Our goal is to make a state tournament, and this is a state tournament setup. Friday night game, followed by a Saturday finish. So I’m just excited to go out there and play. I have full confidence in everyone.”

That confidence created a level of attack that netted two first-half goals.

First, a cross from the far right wing was headed straight up in the air and landed without anyone getting a touch on it. The ball squirted to Lannerd, who laced a left-footed shot into the left side of the net for a 1-0 lead.

QND tied the game on Addie Flesch’s goal with 15 minutes remaining in the first half, but Lannerd had an answer. Off a Moore corner kick with eight minutes to go in the half, Lannerd won a header that pinballed high and carried over Raiders goalkeeper Addison Van Hecke.

“The biggest thing we can do is finish when we have the opportunity,” Lannerd said. “That’s exactly what we did. We had our wingers putting balls into the box and we capitalized on that. It’s exactly what we needed to do.”

After that, it became a bend-and-don’t break mentality.

QND (10-11) spent a majority of the second half on the attack but couldn’t score an equalizer.

“Last time we played QHS, we didn’t play our best. We didn’t create or pass,” QND junior midfielder Sage Stratton said. “This game, I think we controlled the game quite a bit more in the second half and just had a lot more chances.”

Somehow, the Blue Devils withstood it all.

“Our defense was super resilient,” Lannerd said. “Our attackers came back and helped, which is big for us. At the end of the day, it’s that resilience. It’s defending and defending as much as we could without allowing anything. We held strong.”

It’ll take 80 more minutes of that to make the weekend complete.

“We talked about hydrating and eating right and a game plan for breakfast,” QHS coach Travis Dinkheller said. “Like I just told them, we need 80 more minutes. If it takes 100, then we’ll play 100. But we have to come out with the right mentality.

“When we play to the best of our capabilities, we have the ability to go out there and perform at a high level. The last couple of games have gotten a little sloppy, but we’ve had that bend-but-don’t-break mentality. We have to have that.”

Or as the Blue Devils have said all season, do hard better.

“That’s exactly it,” Moore said. “We believe in it.”