Corner kick connection pushes Blue Devils another victory closer to WB6 championship

QUINCY — Bri Lannerd called Rian Moore’s corner kick the perfect ball.

“You can’t get better than that,” Lannerd said.

Moore had a pretty good idea what the end result of it would be.

“I can tell when Bri has her eyes on a ball,” Moore said. “She saw it, it was right at her head and it was like, ‘Oh, there it is.’”

The connection made by the two Quincy High School sophomore midfielders on a corner kick with 18 minutes remaining in regulation resulted in the game-winning goal Tuesday night in a 2-1 victory against Geneseo at Flinn Stadium and moved the QHS girls soccer team ever closer to a Western Big 6 Conference championship.

The Blue Devils (8-4, 5-0 WB6) hold a one-game lead on Moline for first-place in the WB6 with two games remaining. The Blue Devils handed the Maroons their lone WB6 loss to date and will face Rock Island Alleman (9-1-1, 3-1-1 WB6) on April 26 and Rock Island (10-3-2, 2-1-1 WB6) on May 3 to finish the conference slate. 

“The (WB6 title) is something that is really important to us,” Moore said.

The manner in which the Blue Devils overcame an early deficit, pushed the attack for a majority of the second half and made several crucial defensive plays late in regulation proved that, especially on tired legs. Quincy lost 3-2 Monday night at Columbia (Mo.) Rock Bridge.

It showed in the opening 90 seconds.

The Maple Leafs took possession and booted a ball over the top of the Blue Devils’ defense, leading to a breakaway for junior forward Danielle Beach, who pocketed her shot into the lower left side of the net for a 1-0 lead with 38:31 remaining in the first half.

“When the other team scores, it makes us want to go back hard,” freshman midfielder Sydney Welsh said. “We want to go at them. We want to score. We want to make them feel what we felt when we got scored on.”

So panic wasn’t going to overtake the Blue Devils.

“Well, I will say it’s not our first time facing an early deficit,” Moore said with a giggle. “I think we know when that happens it gives us more of a boost. It pushes us to push harder and get back after it.”

Eventually that happened. With 16:40 remaining in the first half, QHS junior forward Breighlyn Thomas ran onto a loose ball headed toward the corner, turned and drove it with her left foot into the far netting for the tying goal.

The momentum and energy gained from it carried over to the second half.

“We were on this side of the field the entire second half,” Lannerd said. “We were controlling the ball. We were getting attacking opportunities. You just knew eventually one had to fall.”

All of the Blue Devils believed it.

“I knew with all of our efforts and all of our wings and forwards making runs we were going to get one eventually,” Welsh said.

The Moore-to-Lannerd connection delivered.

“I just knew I had to put it on frame and give it a chance,” Lannerd said.

It’s given the Blue Devils a chance to win a share of the WB6 title at home next week.

“We’re not done,” Moore said. “We have two more wins. We’re not done.”