‘Everyone worked for this’: QND girls basketball team finishes magical season with Class 2A state championship

NORMAL, Ill. — Blair Eftink looked down at the state championship medal hanging around her neck and shook her head from side to side, almost in disbelief.

“It’s crazy,” she said.

Eftink then glanced around at her Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball teammates, who were milling about in the hallway outside the media room in the bowels of Illinois State University’s Redbird Arena. Each one of them wore their state championship medal, prideful of what they had accomplished.

“Everyone worked for this,” said Eftink, a junior guard. “Even the ones who don’t get a lot of the attention, they worked so hard for this in practice. It’s a full team win.”

That’s why QND coach Eric Orne wanted every player in the postgame press conference following Saturday’s 63-56 victory over top-ranked Winnebago in the Class 2A state championship game.

“We had some hills and we had some valleys, and these guys just pulled through,” Orne said. “I am incredibly, incredibly amazed by what they can do when they stick in that huddle and come out as a team every time.”

This is the sixth state championship in program history and the fourth in Orne’s 20-season stint as head coach, but this was unlike any other title run the veteran coach had experienced because of the personal struggles that brought this group closer together.

Eftink’s mother, Julie, was diagnosed with cancer during the preseason, and the navy blue wristbands the Raiders wore on their left wrists signified their support of her fight.

“One night, I said we’d wear ribbons on our shoes,” Eftink said. “When I got to practice the next day, he had the sign up in the gym. He had the wristbands. He had everything planned out for us. He does a lot of things behind the scenes that just really help.”

His team returned the favor.

Orne’s mother, Mary Sue, passed away February 20, and her funeral took place Friday — the day between the semifinal victory over second-ranked Pana and the championship showdown. The title pursuit took a backburner to supporting their coach, as the players attended the services before refocusing on the task at hand.

That focus never wavered.

“One of the proudest coaching moments of my life,” Orne said after his team finished 31-3. “That’s the bottom line right now. One of the proudest coaching moments of my life.”

An epic individual performance coinciding with a never-say-die team effort is a recipe for pride.

Abbey Schreacke, the first-team all-state junior guard, hit a 15-foot jumper on the game’s opening possession — she also had won the tip —  and scored the Raiders’ first six points and first five baskets. It gave everyone the sense a big scoring effort was coming.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this since the week started, since we came here on Wednesday,” Schreacke said.

Orne noticed it.

“I sensed once she got here she had to make the most of the opportunity and she did,” he said. “She’s our leader on and off the court. Just the way she talked in huddles got everybody together. The right words were being said. She was a captain and a leader all at the same time.”

She kept scoring, too.

Schreacke finished with 35 points, going 10 of 15 from the field and 14 of 14 from the line to go with 11 rebounds and four steals. She also was responsible for limiting Winnebago first-team all-stater Miyah Brown to 12 points on 3-of-18 shooting.

“Contain her,” Orne said of the game plan to stop Brown. “We just had to have a hand in the face and make everything a little bit more difficult every time she came down the floor. I thought we did. That kid is a hell of a player.”

Brown’s presence and critical shots from Campbell Schrank and Renee Rittmeyer, who led the Indians with 16 points, in the second helped the Indians build a seven-point advantage that was whittled to one by halftime. Still, Winnebago never folded, leading 36-34 with 2:52 remaining in the third quarter before QND went on an 11-0 run to take control of the game.

Four different players scored for QND during that run. Winnebago missed three shots and committed two turnovers in that stretch.

“We realized what we had to do defensively and we locked in,” Orne said.

A six-point lead heading into the fourth quarter never dropped below five as the Raiders went 13 of 14 from the free-throw line over the final eight minutes. They were 29 of 34 from the line overall and were able to start celebrating before the final seconds ticked away.

“Heart,” Orne said. “We’ve got heart. We always believe. Our assistant coaches are the first ones to tell the guys in the huddle, ‘You’ve got this, you’ve got this.’ That starts the belief. When we come out, we’re ready to go. 

“We had to make some plays, but deep down when you play an emotional game like this championship game, you’ve got to have something a little extra. That’s what they had today was heart.”

That was enough to bring a title home once again.

“It means a lot of hard work and blood, sweat and tears,” Schreacke said. “It took a lot to get here. We had a lot of turmoil, and overcoming what we did and finishing it like this, it’s all worth it.”