Relentless attack, constant movement enables Blue Devils to open season with WB6 victory

QUINCY — Eventually, AJ Stewart was going to be out of position, out of time or out of luck.

It’s what Bella Brown, Leah Knudson and the rest of the Quincy High School girls soccer players were banking on. Stewart, the Rock Island junior goalkeeper, made six saves in the first half of Tuesday night’s Western Big 6 Conference game at Flinn Stadium and took away shooting angles on multiple other occasions.

Because of it, the Blue Devils led just 1-0 at halftime despite allowing the ball to reach the defensive third of the field only twice.

“It’s all about staying positive with your teammates and cheering them up, even when they miss a shot,” said Brown, a junior midfielder, glancing at Knduson standing to her right.

Knudson simply nodded her head in agreement.

“Yes,” Knudson said, “that’s right.”

They both chuckled and smiled.

“We may get mad at each other sometimes, but it comes out of love,” Brown said. “We talked about not just shooting the ball, but finishing it in the back of the net.”

It took longer than the Blue Devils would have liked to get that done, but ultimately they finished their opportunities in a 3-0 season-opening victory.

“We need to work on it,” said Knudson, a sophomore midfielder. “Obviously, it’s really frustrating when a goalie is that good. You have shots — there were at least four or five in the first half — that most goalies aren’t saving. You just have to stay positive.”

And relentless.

“It’s to keep going and going and going,” Brown said.

Such effort tends to pay off. Scoreless until the 33rd minute, the Blue Devils attacked off a throw–in from the left sideline as Knudson split two defenders with a soft pass right to Avery Morrison’s feet. Morrison took one touch and laced a shot inside the far post for her first goal of the season and a 1-0 lead.

“It’s a sigh of relief,” Knudson said of getting a breakthrough goal.

Two more followed in the second half. Brown scored in the 52nd minute, sticking with a bouncing ball in the box before pushing inside the left post. Knudson scored in the 70th minute with a shot from the middle of the field.

“It was about moving the ball and creating the opportunities,” QHS coach Travis Dinkheller said. “Someone could get stuck on the fact that we missed. Credit to their goalkeeper, who did a good job, but I was encouraged by how we moved the ball. 

“We kept it simple. We didn’t try to do too much. We talked about times where there were a few too many dribbles and trust the ball into space. I was really, really encouraged by how they communicated, too.”

Brown noted one other aspect that helped.

“Our spacing was great,” she said.

It allowed a team with fresh faces to begin to create its own identity.

“We needed this boost,” Brown said.