Defensive pressure, QND’s scoring duo too much for QHS to overcome in rivalry game

QUINCY — The Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball team didn’t score off the opening tip Tuesday night like it so often does.

The Raiders didn’t convert on their opening possession either, which negated their ability to jump into a full-court press and create havoc for Quincy High School’s backcourt.

It took 52 seconds for all of that to happen. Once it did, the Blue Devils were in trouble.

Blair Eftink’s 3-pointer from the left wing preceded the second of QHS’s eight first-quarter turnovers as QND built a double-digit advantage before the stanza ended. When Lia Quintero scored off a drive from the right wing 1:25 into the second quarter, the lead hit 11 points and never dropped into single digits again.

It resulted in a 57-35 victory for the second-ranked team in Class 2A and some much-needed momentum heading into Thursday’s showdown with third-ranked Illini West in Carthage.

“We know it’s going to be a big challenge,” QND coach Eric Orne said after his team improved to 16-1. “They’ve played a super competitive schedule, they’ve played a lot of minutes and they’re tough.”

The Raiders had to show some toughness and reliability against the Blue Devils’ collapsing defense.

Eftink’s 3-pointer came off a kickout from Abbey Schreacke, who had gotten double-teamed in the post. In fact, the Raiders made four 3-pointers in the first half off kickouts and buried six treys overall in taking a 34-24 halftime lead.

“Abbey gets a ton of pressure,” said Eftink, who went 5 of 8 from 3-point range and scored 25 points. “For her to get doubled down there and to trust all of us to kick it out and give it to any of us is huge. All of us can knock down shots, and we’re a good shooting team. It’s good for her to have that confidence in us.”

It proved deflating for a defense intent of limiting the contributions of all Raiders not named Schreacke.

“We didn’t want to let anyone else go off on us,” QHS coach Brad Dance said after Schreacke scored a game-high 26 points. “And Eftink made some shots. We lost her a couple of times, and she hit some shots with someone in her face. She played a really good game.”

The defensive pressure QND applied set everything up as QHS (6-7) committed 19 turnovers total.

“We started out slow,” QHS junior guard Leila Dade said. “That’s what really hurt us.”

The miscues turned into 22 points for the Raiders.

“It’s really just learning and having a short-term memory,” said Dade, who finished with 10 points. “You dribble to the side and they come with the trap. When the middle is not there, we made some bad passes and they got the steal from there. We just have to learn from it. A couple of times we kept doing the same thing over and over. That really hurt us.”

The Raiders forced the issue by staying in sync.

“It’s a lot of communication and energy,” Eftink said. “We work on communication a lot. Being able to talk to each other, trust each other and have a lot of energy is so important because we build each other up.”

The chemistry led to scoring on seven of their first 10 possessions of the second half and extending the lead to 50-28. Eftink and Schreacke scored all but one point in that 16-4 run.

“They really got themselves open,” Orne said. “They fed off each other and made plays.”