Rematch with Ironmen in sectional championship brings about plenty of emotion for Blue Devils

COLLINSVILLE, Ill. — As they filed out of Vergil Fletcher Gym on Tuesday night, the Quincy High School boys basketball players weren’t aware of who their opponent would be in Friday’s Class 4A Collinsville Sectional title game.

“Either one, I’m excited to play,” senior guard Bradley Longcor III said.

He knew there would be motivation regardless of which team — Rock Island or Normal Community — won the sectional semifinal being played Tuesday night at Pekin’s Dawdy Hawkins Gym. Quincy beat Alton 56-33 in the semifinal played in Collinsville.

“The loss to Rock Island is fresher in our minds,” Longcor said of the 58-53 loss to the Rocks in the regular-season finale that denied the Blue Devils a perfect run through the Western Big 6 Conference. “And then there’s what happened last year.”

That’s something no one associated with the QHS program has forgotten.

Normal Community upended Quincy 44-43 in the sectional championship game at Pekin, scoring off a turnover as time expired to hand Blue Devils coach Andy Douglas one of the most bitter losses of his career.

“That loss has been on my mind every day,” Douglas said. “No exaggeration, it’s been every day since that moment.”

The chance to bury those memories finally exists. Quincy (30-3) will face Normal Community (28-6) at 7 p.m. Friday for the sectional title. The Ironmen advanced with a 54-44 victory over Rock Island in which Trey Burditt scored 17 points and Kobe Walker scored 10 points.

“For our group, it’s about putting those emotions aside and playing off how we’ve been playing,” Douglas said. “We can’t get hijacked by the emotions thinking about the past. We have to concentrate on the present.”

That’s something the Blue Devils did effectively against the Redbirds, building a 24-9 halftime lead by limiting Alton to two second-quarter points and then denying the Redbirds a comeback by finishing the third quarter on a 10-3 run.

“We knew about the game ahead of us, but we weren’t really worried about the game ahead of us,” junior guard Milton Whitfield said. “But it impacted us. We wanted that next game. So it made us go out and play with energy so we got to the next game.”