‘I’m excited to see us get better’: Blue Devils overcome miscues with ballyhooed offense attack, beat Raiders in season opener

QUINCY — Quarterback Bradyn Little admits the Quincy High School offense still has a few kinks to iron out.

“Too many penalties, too many turnovers,” he said. “But we’ll clean those up. The only way to get experience is by playing games. I’m excited to see us get better.”

Pardon future opponents for not sharing in his enthusiasm.

Despite turning the ball over three times and being whistled for 12 penalties, the Blue Devils rolled up 508 yards of total offense to pull away from crosstown rival Quincy Notre Dame in the second half Friday night for a 40-12 victory at Advance Physical Therapy Field.

Not even the miscues could fully stop the winner’s array of offensive weapons.

Little, who already has rewritten the school’s record book, completed his first 10 pass attempts and 27 of 35 overall for 364 yards and five touchdowns. He also ran for another score as QHS won for the seventh time in eight meetings since the series was renewed in 2015.

Tykell Hammers and Jeraius Rice Jr. were on the receiving end of two touchdown passes apiece, and Rico Clay hauled in a 40-yard scoring strike on the team’s opening possession. A penalty for having an ineligible man downfield negated a 69-yard Little-to-Hammers score.

Little also threw for five touchdowns against the Raiders in the 2023 opener.

The game turned during the final 90 seconds of the first half and the opening five minutes of the second when the Blue Devils scored three touchdowns to turn a 13-12 lead into a comfortable cushion. They tacked on their final score with 8 seconds left in the third quarter while shutting out the Raiders in the second half.

“It doesn’t always work out this way, but I love getting the ball to start the second half,” said QHS coach Rick Little, who deferred after winning the opening coin toss. “You feel like if you capitalize and then get the ball back, you can really open the game up.”

That’s what the Blue Devils did.

After Notre Dame trimmed the deficit to 13-12 on a 12-yard touchdown pass from Wyatt Mueller to Joseph Doellman with 4:02 left in the second period, QHS needed just seven plays to go 51 yards, with Bradyn Little finding Hammers in the right corner of the end zone from 15 yards out with 1:28 remaining to make it 20-12.

Four plays into the second half, Bradyn Little again hooked up with Hammers, who weaved through traffic to score from the 11. Hammers finished with 10 catches for 77 yards.

Jack Hammock then intercepted a Hunter Schuckman pass at the Notre Dame 46. Three plays later, on fourth and 1 from the 37, Braydn Little emerged from the scrum in the middle of the field on a sneak and raced in for the score.

“I wasn’t expecting a touchdown on that play, just a yard or two,” Bradyn Little said. “I just kept going, then I got a little opening and took it to the house.“

“We’ll have to dial that up a little more throughout the season,” Rick Little said with a grin.

Rice, who had hauled in a 13-yard touchdown pass three minutes into the second quarter, closed out the scoring with another 13-yard catch in the right side of the end zone in the waning seconds of the third period.

Rice finished with 93 rushing yards on 13 attempts and 97 more yards on seven receptions. Caedan Johannessen caught five passes for 109 yards — his 62-yard catch and run down the left sideline to the Notre Dame 8 set up QHS’s second score — and Clay had 77 yards on four catches.

“We have the ability to be very explosive,” Rick Little said of his wide receiver corps. “It was a position of strength for us last year and it’s certainly a position of strength again this year.”

Notre Dame’s Ivan Hun had a game-best 106 rushing yards on 22 carries, including a 7-yard touchdown, but the Raiders managed just 82 passing yards and 238 yards overall. They also were flagged for 10 penalties and had two passes intercepted.

Cleaning up the mistakes will be QHS’s priority before hosting Alton next Friday. For example, its second drive stalled deep in Notre Dame territory when it was flagged on three consecutive plays and then lost the ball on a fumble.

“We have to lay off the holding and the other flags,” said tackle Todd Smith, the only returning starter on the offensive line. “It was a little frustrating at times. We seem to always have these first-game jitters and stuff. We can overcome that.”

With four newcomers on the line, Rick Little knew there would be some growing pains.

“I don’t want to admit that I anticipated a bunch of penalties, but at the same time, you’re going to get some first-game errors when you turn over all the guys we did,” he said. “We’ve got to improve, but I think we have the guys to do it.”