Raiders unable to make shots fall, so they rely on defense to rumble past Pirates

QUINCY — No exaggeration of the number of field goal attempts the Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball team missed within 6 feet of the basket was going to be too high.

“Way too many,” junior point guard Ari Buehler said.

Raiders coach Eric Orne just shook his head.

“They just didn’t fall,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Despite the struggle to pry the lid off the rim, the Raiders relied on an old standby to get through Friday night’s matchup with Boonville (Mo.) in the 17th Rumble on the River at John Wood Community College’s Student Activity Center.

They played in-your-face defense.

QND, ranked sixth in Class 3A, limited Boonville to nine points in the first half and pulled away for a 48-33 victory, giving it three victories in four days with one more game to play before enjoying the Christmas break.

“If we’re getting good shots and they’re not falling, it’s just not our night for us,” Buehler said. “We’ll get another night where they fall. But it’s always our night defensively if we put effort into it.”

The Raiders (10-0) did exactly that. The Pirates managed just one field goal — a 3-pointer by Karagyn Cooper — in the second quarter and trailed 21-9 at halftime.

QND had just three field goals in the second quarter but didn’t allow the offensive struggles to leak into missteps at the other end of the floor.

“It’s all about going back on the defensive end and making a better play than we did on the offensive end,” said Buehler, who finished with nine points. “What we were doing on defense is working for us, so we have to keep up our defensive intensity.”

They tried to calm down on the offensive end, too.

“When Coach called a timeout, we kind of regrouped,” said Stratton, who scored a game-high 19 points in earning MVP honors. “We were like, ‘OK, let’s run our offense. Let’s look for our good stuff and try not to force anything.’ Really, we just had to get the ball moving and look for our open shots.”

That happened in the third quarter when the Raiders scored 22 points with six different players scoring. However, QND managed just four points in the fourth quarter, never fully taking Boonville out of the game.

“We had some really good looks, but we just couldn’t put the ball in the basket,” Orne said. “I think we’re showing a little mental fatigue. We just didn’t feed off a nice crowd in a good gym with a good start. We just got a little emotionally wrapped up in the game on the bad side.”

There will be nights the offense doesn’t click.

“Sometimes you just go with how well you play defensively,” Orne said.

Defense will be at a premium again Saturday afternoon when the Raiders face Cairo (Mo.) Northeast on the final day of the week-long event. The Bearcats are ranked No. 1 in the Missouri Class 1 state poll.

The Raiders are confident they have enough energy to get to the finish line.

“I know we do,” Stratton said. “We have to reach down and really fight for this one. It’s going to be tough, but it’s nothing we can’t do. This will get us prepared for the postseason.”

That comes down to determination.

“Focus, lock in and make sure when we get to the game that we have good energy,” Buehler said. “Without good energy, we won’t be able to get up and down the floor and play defense.”