Raiders win 15th straight game as Schreacke is ‘just a force we never stopped’

QUINCY — For the second game in a row, the Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball team raced out to a 20-point lead.

And for the second game in a row, a lack of focus set in.

The lead never dipped below double digits as the Raiders knocked off Bloomington Central Catholic 67-51 Saturday afternoon at The Pit. However, QND coach Eric Orne knows consistency is needed with the postseason right around the corner.

“We got complacent,” Orne said. “We’re working through it. I just think it’s one of those things. When we do establish ourselves like we did in the first quarter, we have got to keep our foot on their throat.”

Abbey Schreake agrees.

“We cannot expect the other team to just let us keep going,” said Schreake, the senior guard who is QND’s all-time leading scorer. “They just kept coming harder and harder.”

BCC switched to a zone to start the second half and whittled the lead down to 43-31 with a little more than five minutes to go in the third quarter. Sophomore guard Sage Stratton hit 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions and a three-point play by Schreake with less than a minute to go helped push the Raiders to a 15-point edge heading into the fourth quarter.

The Saints continued to battle. After field goals on back-to-back possessions pulled BCC within 61-47, Orne called a timeout.

“We had to refocus,” Orne said. “And once we refocused, I thought we had a lot better and stronger possessions.”

After the timeout, the Raiders milked 1:20 off the clock before getting a layup from freshman Ari Buehler.

“It was probably the winning possession that we needed to really separate ourselves at the time,” Orne said. “We finally showed some patience and valued the ball at that point.” 

The basket started a six-point run as the Raiders won for 15th straight time.

Schreake led the Raiders (22-1) with 25 points. Stratton chipped in 13 points, while Blair Eftink added 11 for the top-ranked team in Class 2A.

Bloomington Central Catholic (16-7) lost for the first time in its last 10 games and got a career-high 21 points from sophomore Lauren Emm.

“She played hard,” Saints head coach Debbie Coffman said. “But you know, they’re (QND) just unstoppable. They have lots of weapons and Abbey’s just a force we never stopped.”