Valuing possessions enables Raiders to overcome turnover-laden start, cruise past Suns

QUINCY — It only took a couple hap-hazard early possessions for Kevin Meyer to practically become unglued. 

Rather than take a timeout to voice his frustration, the Quincy Notre Dame boys basketball coach pointed at a ball and gave his players a simple message: Value it.

“Once we settled in, I thought our guys started clicking,” Meyer said.

Meyer watched the Raiders the ball over on three of their first five possessions of Friday’s tilt with Southeastern at The Pit, but they erased their sluggish start to take an 18-6 lead after the first quarter and were never threatened in a 65-32 victory.

QND (3-2) made six 3-point field goals in the first half and built a 21-point lead at halftime. The Raiders credited ball movement as the key.

“If we get open shots and make them, it swings the energy towards our way,” senior forward Noah Lunt said.

Meyer said there was no lack of motivation considering the Raiders were coming off a winless weekend in losing consecutive games to Springfield Sacred-Heart Griffin and Macomb by a combined four points.

“I thought we shared the ball, our press was active, and we had a lot more deflections than we had all of last weekend,” Meyer said. “That was our point of emphasis, to just defend. Even at halftime, we still challenged them to come out and get three stops and they got three.”

Sophomores Jace Allensworth and Beau Eftink led the Raiders with 11 points apiece. Allensworth, Eftink, Jackson Connoyer and Gavin Doellman are part of a sophomore quartet seeing increased minutes at the varsity level.

“We have really good chemistry,” Eftink said. “Whenever we get out there together, it’s a lot better for us because we connect. We get steals on defense and then get points. We just do well together.”

Allensworth has started all five games and garnered the most minutes out of the sophomore group, but he knows any one of them can play valuable minutes.

“We’ve been playing together for a while,” Allensworth said. “We know how to get each other looks and open shots.”

QND senior forward Aiden Klauser also finished in double figures with 10 points, while junior guard Alex Dance chipped in nine points and senior guard Aden Genenbacher added seven.

“Our rotations were a little different and we went deeper, especially in the first half. I felt like we needed to because of back-to-back games,” Meyer said. “Last week, we were drained after Friday night trying to fight back into a game (vs. SHG) and then we go into overtime on Saturday (at Macomb). 

“We’ve got a long week next week as well. We needed to get our rotation ready to play Hannibal (on Saturday) night.”

The Suns were led by senior forward Mason Fry who had 12 points while senior guard Carter Hitz pitched in 10. Southeastern played without one of its starters as junior guard Griffin Tippey missed the contest due to illness.