In battle of No. 1-ranked teams, Brimfield takes QND ‘to the woodshed’ with 24-point victory

BRIMFIELD, Ill. — As disheartening as it was to carry home a 24-point loss from a battle of two of the state’s No. 1-ranked teams, Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball coach Eric Orne tried to remind the Raiders tomorrow is a new day.

And another game awaits.

“Maybe it’s a good thing we have a game (Thursday),” Orne said as the Raiders turn their attention to West Central Conference foe Liberty after Brimfield ran QND out of the gym Wednesday night by using a 20-4 spurt in the second quarter to propel it to a 73-49 victory.

The Raiders, still ranked No. 1 in Class 2A after going toe-to-toe last Saturday night in a 12-point loss to Class 4A No. 3 Edwardsville, were a basket away from having a running clock put on them in the fourth quarter by the Indians, ranked No. 1 in Class 1A.

“We chose to come up and play this game because, A, we thought we could win it, and B, it would be a great challenge for us either way,” Orne said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t win and it wasn’t a good challenge because we got taken out to the woodshed. We got whipped tonight.

“This close to the postseason, it’s not something you want to see. We’ll bounce back. We just need to work a little harder and make sure our focus in pregame is a lot better than it was tonight.”

Orne sensed trouble before the opening tip.

“This one just didn’t feel good on the court all day long and I didn’t know what we could do to change that,” Orne said.

Still, the Raiders trailed only 21-19 at the end of the first quarter as QND junior all-state guard Abbey Schreacke scored 17 points. 

Brimfield scored the first eight points of the second quarter and didn’t allow Notre Dame to score until Schreacke hit a turnaround jumper with 4:26 to play before halftime. Schreacke hit an elbow jumper with 1:20 to go in the half for the Raiders’ only other basket of the second quarter.

“We weren’t getting back on defense and recognizing the spacing,” Orne said. “We were giving up way too much spacing. We just didn’t do a lot of things well at all. We were a step behind the entire game. When you play a team going full throttle like they were tonight, it got ugly real quick there in the second quarter.”

It didn’t get any prettier in the second half.

The Raiders scored only six points in the first 3:30 of the third quarter and ended up trailing by as many as 28 points. Schreacke finished with 34 points and 10 rebounds, but she couldn’t rally the Raiders by herself.

“It was a rough night,” Orne said. “I didn’t think we got off the bus with a lot of energy. (The Indians) played well and they shot well. I’d give Brimfield a ton of credit. They did some really nice things going over the top of our press and beating us back.

“We got beat on all of the facets we could get beat on. I’ll certainly take a lot of responsibility for that. Tonight, we just weren’t ready to go.”