‘You can’t stop it’: QHS goes on second quarter tear to turn crosstown showdown into rout

QUINCY — Anyone who caught sight of Quincy High School boys basketball coach Andy Douglas on the sideline after the Blue Devils forced a turnover on Quincy Notre Dame’s third possession of Saturday night’s game might have been a little perplexed.

Douglas stomped his left foot, slammed his right fist into his left hand and loudly barked at his team.

A traveling call on the Raiders negated what could have been an easy field goal attempt because the Blue Devils didn’t react and recover defensively the way they’d been instructed.

“(QND) wanted to take advantage of us switching screens, and we’ve been really lazy in our switching,” Douglas said. “I think we’re relying a little too much on our athleticism to be able to get there. We have to be better there.”

Once the Blue Devils decided to be better, Douglas had little reason to stomp or be frustrated.

QHS, ranked second in Class 4A, opened the second quarter on a 17-2 run, forcing eight turnovers during a stretch that saw the Blue Devils double-up the Raiders on the scoreboard and gain enough of a cushion that they invoked the running clock in the fourth quarter of a 70-40 victory at Blue Devil Gym.

“Once we build the lead, the crowd goes crazy,” QHS senior forward Keshaun Thomas said. “The energy goes to a whole other level, and that’s what we needed.”

It’s like a train running unencumbered down the tracks.

“You can’t stop it,” said QHS senior guard Bradley Longcor III, who scored a game-high 25 points. “That should be the circumstance when we come out like we did. We had a little bit of a different energy at the start of the second quarter.”

And much better execution.

“It was fun to see our guys putting possession after possession after possession together,” Douglas said.

A three-point play by Thomas and a 3-pointer by Longcor jumpstarted the run, and Thomas turned a steal into a breakaway dunk that forced QND coach Greg Altmix to burn a timeout with 6:02 remaining in the half.

A Kamren Wires steal and layup was followed by a Longcor 3-pointer from the left corner, a Rico Clay putback and a Wires steal that set up Longcor’s dunk for a 36-17 advantage with 4:25 to go before halftime that convinced Altmix to use another timeout. Beau Eftink’s layin off a drive down the right side of the lane with 5:36 to go was the Raiders’ only basket breaking up the run.

QHS (9-0) scored 12 of the 17 points during that span in transition.

“That’s the reward,” Douglas said. “When you play solid defense, keep the ball in front of you and you’re playing off the ball and staying engaged, you have the opportunity for fast-break points and dunks., and we had a few of those.”

QND (6-3) committed 16 turnovers and went 1 of 11 from 3-point range overall.

“Anybody can make a shot, but can you make that shot when things get loud, things aren’t going your way, you’re facing a defense that is talking?” said Wires, who finished with seven points and six steals. “That’s the situation we put them in, and they didn’t make a lot of shots.”

QHS outscored QND 27-9 in the second quarter — the Raiders were down only four points at the end of the first quarter — and then opened the second half on an 11-2 run that pushed the advantage to 57-26 after just 3 ½ minutes of the third quarter.

It was a 31-point lead at the end of the third quarter, invoking the running clock for the fifth time in nine games.

“Everyone kind of looked at the score at the end of the first quarter and knew that shouldn’t have been the circumstance,” Longcor said. “We changed it up and really focused in and locked in. This game is a big thing every year, and we did a good job of showing we’re the best basketball team in town.”

Wires believes the Blue Devils are better on a larger scale if they maintain their attention to detail.

“I have no problem with this group going against anybody, anybody in the state or even anybody in the country,” he said. “But when we go against teams we know we’re expected to blow out, can we do the little things right? If we do the little things right against them, we can the little things right against anybody.

“And we did a lot of the little things right tonight.”