Raiders rev up in second quarter, win regional championship behind Schreacke’s 29 points

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball team’s struggling start was erased when Abbey Schreacke scored with 6.6 seconds remaining in the first quarter to give the Raiders’ the lead.

QND never trailed again.

Off a Williamsville turnover with 15.1 seconds left in the quarter, QND got the ball into Schreacke’s hands, and she drove from above the left elbow into the middle of the lane and sank a running right-handed shot for a 10-9 lead. The Raiders then scored the first 11 points of the second quarter and used it as a springboard to a 54-38 victory in the Class 2A Sacred Heart-Griffin Regional championship at Jim Belz Gym.

“We’ve had some long road trips, and with back-to-back long regional games, you know it’s going to take its toll at some point,” QND coach Eric Orne said. “Once we got the lead, it allowed us to settle in a little bit. Our defense got a little better. We were a little more spry on our feet.”

The second-quarter spurt was a stark contrast to the first-quarter drought.

The Raiders didn’t score on their first four possessions and went nearly three minutes before Schreacke scored in transition. She scored on back-to-back possessions for a 6-5 lead with 3:15 to go in the quarter, but QND failed to score on its next five possessions.

The Bullets led 9-6 before Blair Eftink made a pair of free throws with 1:10 to go, and after two more empty possessions, Schreacke capped the quarter with her go-ahead basket.

“Unfortunately, we were very hesitant early in the game,” said Orne, whose team went 4 of 12 from the field in the first quarter. “We didn’t score early, which didn’t allow us to get into our press. We weren’t looking for shots.”

An adjustment to the full-court press made during the break between quarters re-energized the QND defense and sparked what ended up being a 15-0 run. Schreacke had 11 of her game-high 29 points in that stretch.

And although the Raiders could never make it a lopsided lead, they kept the Bullets at a safe distance to advance.

“We’re just trying to survive,” Orne said. “We’re trying to play some better basketball, and we know we need to. But we’ll take our win and get ourselves ready for Carlinville.”

The Raiders (26-3) will face the Cavaliers at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the second semifinal of the Class 2A Waverly Sectional. Illini West and Alton Marquette square off at 6 p.m. in the other semifinal.

“We’ll work on some toughness drills,” said Orne, whose team went 4 of 28 from 3-point range in the two regional games combined. “I think our shooting will improve. We just need to relax a little bit. I think getting to that regional plateau just makes everything after it more fun.”