Injuries, defensive pressure trip up Raiders in sectional title game as Saints shoot way to crown

STANFORD, Ill. — When Cole Certa caught the ball two steps beyond the volleyball spike line and almost nonchalantly dribbled forward, concern immediately spread up and down the Quincy Notre Dame boys basketball team’s bench.

“We were talking and saying, ‘He’s pulling it, he’s pulling it,’” Raiders coach Kevin Meyer said. “Sure enough he does.”

He shot a hole in the heart of QND’s plans to reach the Class 2A elite eight, too.

The Bloomington Central Catholic sophomore sharpshooter took two dribbles and launched a 3-point attempt from 4 feet beyond the arc, hitting nothing but net to give the Saints a 52-51 lead with 3:07 remaining in regulation of Friday night’s Class 2A Stanford Olympia Sectional championship.

QND missed shots on its next four possessions and never recovered, suffering a 57-52 season-ending loss.

“We made a couple bad plays, and they made a couple really good plays,” QND junior guard Jackson Stratton said. “Props to BCC for making those good plays. We just have to make those better plays next time.”

The Raiders (21-12) have to take away open looks as well, even those well beyond the arc.

“A special player puts up big points,” Meyer said, “and we’re on a bus ride home on the losing side of this.”

Certa’s shot, which capped a 32-point performance by the son of former Quincy University basketball player Tony Certa, was one of a myriad of obstacles the Raiders were forced to overcome.

It started with making one field goal in the game’s first four minutes and included an eight-possession stretch of the third quarter in which the Raiders went scoreless and turned the ball over five times. Still, the biggest hurdle was playing the second half without leading scorer Jake Wallingford.

The 6-foot-7 junior suffered a left ankle injury with 1:15 remaining in the second quarter when he ran down a ball tipped into the backcourt and finished a layin off the glass while being fouled by BCC’s Colin Hayes.

Wallingford landed awkwardly and got up limping, but he stayed in the game long enough to make the free throw to convert the three-point play before going to the bench for trainer Kyle Leapley to look at the injury.

“It’s a bang-bang play that ends with him on the bench,” Meyer said. “That does rattle you a little bit. How do you recover from that?”

When Wallingford, who scored six points in the first half, didn’t return to the court with the Raiders after halftime, the severity of the injury became real.

“It hurt, but we have to think, ‘Next man up,’” said Stratton, who finished with 14 points. “We missed Wally, don’t get me wrong, but it’s next-man-up mentality for us.”

Wallingford joined the Raiders on the bench in the middle of the third quarter while still in uniform, but requiring crutches to get around. Doctors will examine the injury as soon as possible to determine if it’s a high ankle sprain or a possible fracture of the lower leg.

“It killed us, but we had to keep pushing,” junior guard Braden Sheffield said.

The Raiders had a 32-26 lead at the time of the accident and was extended to 10 points when they scored the first four points of the third quarter. The lead was 39-32 after the Saints’ bench received a technical foul with 4:49 to go in the third quarter.

By the time Certa hit a 3-pointer with 37 seconds remaining in the frame, the Raiders trailed 41-39. The Saints pulling their 1-3-1 zone defense beyond the volleyball spike line

“They came out and extended us,” Meyer said. “And we responded with four straight empty possessions. That was the stretch that hurt us. We tried to walk them through it and get them engaged, but it wasn’t what we did that changed. It’s what they did.

“Finally, we settled them back down and we battled back. And you saw it get tight again. When you’re playing with a 10-point lead like that, you have to be able to maneuver through that and handle that.”

Despite losing the lead, the Raiders responded with a 10-5 run, kickstarted by an Alex Connoyer 3-pointer and capped by Jake Hoyt’s drive for a right-handed layup and a 51-49 lead with 3:23 to go.

Certa delivered the back-breaking 3-pointer 16 seconds later.

“They went on a run that gave them an extra boost of energy,” Hoyt said. “And we couldn’t answer.”

Nor could the Raiders match the Saints’ shooting prowess. BCC made six 3-pointers and scored eight points off putbacks.

“We just left them open too often,” said Sheffield, who scored 14 points. “Their shots fell, and our shots didn’t.”