‘It’s like our homecoming’: Raiders outlast Pioneers to win super-sectional, earn chance to return to Redbird Arena for final four

BEARDSTOWN, Ill. — Doubt never fully surfaced. Concern may have.

Yet, no matter what level of uneasiness the Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball players actually felt during the course of Monday night’s Class 2A Beardstown Super-Sectional, the unshakeable belief they have in each other always prevailed.

“We stuck together,” junior guard Abbey Schreacke said. “That’s what we’re pretty good at. We use our chemistry. We just stick together until the end. We know we have to keep playing until the buzzer goes off.”

When it did, a sigh of relief was met by a rush of joy.

The Raiders are headed back to the state tournament for the first time since 2014, making 6 of 7 free throws in the final two minutes to dispatch Normal U-High 30-28 at Beardstown High School. It wasn’t pretty, nor was it smooth, but it was effective in accomplishing the goal of getting to Redbird Arena.

“I’m so excited,” QND junior guard Blair Eftink said. “When the timer ran out, it was just kind of a relief. It was a different style of game than we normally play. We scored a lot less than we normally do. It shows we can adapt to it and come together as a team and finish it off.”

The only thing left to finish is bringing home the biggest trophy possible.

QND (29-3) will face Pana (35-1) at 2:30 p.m. Thursday in the first Class 2A state semifinal in Redbird Arena on the Illinois State University campus in Bloomington. Winnebago (34-2) and Minonk Fieldcrest (34-2) will tip at 4:15 p.m. in the other semifinal.

This will be the Raiders’ 11th appearance in the state semifinals and first since finishing third in Class 3A in 2014. That was the end of five straight state appearances, three of which ended with state championships.

“It’s like our homecoming,” QND freshman guard Sage Stratton said. “We’re coming back, and we’re following in the footsteps of those teams that came before us. We wanted to get to state really bad.”

When the Raiders’ lead was just 11-10 at halftime and that slim advantage was gone by the end of the third quarter — the game was tied at 18 — concern was understandable.

QND made three of its first five field goal attempts to build a 7-3 lead less than three minutes into the game before the offense went into a tailspin. The Raiders made just two field goals the final 13 minutes of the first half and went 5 of 18 from the field.

The third quarter started with three consecutive misses, and by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, QND was shooting 27.6 percent from the field and 12.5 percent from 3-point range.

“It wasn’t that there was doubt,” QND coach Eric Orne said. “You just don’t want to keep hoping they’re going to win. You’re like, ‘This is what we’ve got to do. This is what we’ve got to do.’ There were times it was just hard. They were doing good things and getting good shots. They just weren’t going in.

“The one time I did think to myself, ‘I don’t want to be going home thinking about those shots we missed. We need a break. Somebody come up and make a play.’ And we did. We made some plays when we really had to.”

There were two critical ones to start the fourth quarter.

Eryn Cornwell scored a layin off a Lia Quintero assist 22 seconds into the final frame, and Eftink converted a steal into a layup on the next possession for a lead QND never relinquished. Normal U-High never let QND make run to put the game away, and Kayla Petersen’s 3-pointer with 1:07 remaining in regulation pulled the Pioneers within 28-26. 

The Raiders snuffed out two chances for the Pioneers to tie, and Eftink provided the necessary separation by making two free throws with 8.2 seconds remaining.

Had his team not shown confidence in itself during timeouts down the stretch, Orne might not have been as confident himself. As it was, his belief never wavered.

“They won the game with the huddles,” Orne said. “They stayed together. They stayed together in those huddles. It made a big difference. They found a way. They believed in the huddle that they were going to go to Bloomington, every time they came together they believed it.”

How could they not when it’s part of their makeup.

“We have to stick to who we are,” said Schreacke, who was the only player in double figures with 12 poitns. “It’s just us five out on the court. We just have to keep it in our huddle.”