QHS girls earn shot at Alton in regional title game after dispatching traditional nemesis Edwardsville

GRANITE CITY, Ill. — The growth in confidence and maturity of the Quincy High School girls basketball players can be seen by looking at two measuring sticks.

On Nov. 23, the Blue Devils lost 42-29 to Edwardsville in a neutral site game in O’Fallon, Ill.

Monday night, in the Class 4A Granite City Regional semifinals, the fifth-seeded Blue Devils earned a 42-36 victory in which the fourth-seeded Tigers shot just 22 percent from the field and trailed the final 16 minutes after Quincy took a four-point lead into halftime.

“There has been a lot of maturity from our young kids,” Quincy coach Brad Dance said. “Khloe (Nicholson) and Cameron Byquist were two of our best players tonight. Myley Longcor was huge. She’s been huge for us all year. She does a good job of handling the ball and not panicking. We did all this without our all-state forward (Jada Brown), who was in foul trouble a lot of the night. Other girls stepped up and fortunately did.”

Byquist, a sophomore, led the Blue Devils with 13 points, while Nicholson, a freshman, added 10 points. Brown, a sophomore who recently surpassed 1,000 career points and is averaging 18 points per game, was limited to nine points.

Trailing 9-8 after the first quarter after committing seven turnovers, the Blue Devils regained their composure and control in the second quarter.

A mid-range jumper from Nicholson opened the second quarter and started a 10-2 run that was capped by 3-pointers from Myley Longcor and Byquist to make it 18-11 with 4:18 to go in the half.

“We kept forcing it into the middle of the press instead of using the sideline like we talked about,” Dance said. “Once we started doing that, we were getting easier looks. We still missed a lot of layups.”

Edwardsville responded with a 9-2 run over the next two-plus minutes with 3-pointers from Lainey McFarlin and Kennedy Gieseking helping tie it at 20 with two minutes left.

The Tigers, though, missed their final five shots of the quarter, and the Blue Devils took a 24-20 lead into halftime.

Quincy used a 7-0 run to extend the lead to 33-22 midway through the third quarter. The 11-point lead, which happened three times, was its largest of the night. It was 35-24 with 2:15 left in the third after a basket inside by Byquist.

Gieseking’s third trey of the night opened the fourth quarter and made it 35-30, and later a traditional three-point play from Mia Semith cut the deficit to 37-33 with 4:54 left. Semith’s basket was the last of the night from the Tigers, who missed their last six shots and turned the ball over three times. Their final three points came from Semith at the free-throw line, including the first to make it 37-34 with 3:46 left. It was as close as the Tigers would get.

Quincy got baskets down the stretch from Mia Ellefritz and Nicholson to help hold off Edwardsville.

“Our girls stepped up,” Dance said. “Their girls played extremely hard. It was a good game. I thought our girls played extremely well throughout the whole game.”

It enables the Blue Devils (20-10) to play for a regional title for a third straight season. They will face top-seeded Alton (29-2) at 6 p.m. Friday after the Redbirds eliminated eighth-seeded Granite City 77-17 in Monday’s other semifinal.

“This is the third year in a row with 20 wins. That’s pretty good for the girls,” Dance said. “They are starting to develop a little bit more and we are getting in the right direction. The girls are excited to keep playing and moving on.”