‘It sucked the life right out of Rocky’: Back-to-back 3-pointers propel Blue Devils to top of WB6 standings

ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — Over the course of a six-minute span of the second half Friday night in which the Quincy High School boys basketball team chiseled a 13-point deficit down to one, Rock Island never lost its energy or its swagger.

That is until Jeremiah Talton and Ralph Wires took it away.

The senior swingman and sophomore point guard connected on back-to-back 3-pointers to make the comeback complete, giving the Blue Devils a 54-53 lead with 3:43 remaining in regulation of the Western Big 6 Conference game at the Rocky Fieldhouse.

This time, the Rocks didn’t respond. They went the final five minutes without a field goal and watched Talton and Bradley Longcor III combine to go 5 of 6 from the free-throw line in the final 33.4 seconds to snare a 61-57 victory.

“It was a big energy gain for us,” Talton said of the consecutive 3-pointers he and Wires hit. “It sucked the life right out of Rocky, and we knew it was time for us to keep pushing even harder.”

The Blue Devils pushed their way right to the top of the WB6 standings.

Quincy (12-3, 5-0 WB6) is the league’s only remaining undefeated team and has a one-game lead on both Rock Island (9-7, 4-1 WB6) and Galesburg (15-2, 4-1 WB6). The Blue Devils will finish the first half of the conference season next week after hosting Geneseo on Tuesday and traveling to Galesburg on Friday.

It’ll take another collective effort to maintain the top spot.

That’s how this comeback happened.

“It took straight teamwork and us working as a team to keep battling every possession,” Talton said.

Equally important was the fact none of the Blue Devils panicked.

“We were composed and (QHS coach Andy Douglas) told us to keep battling,” Talton said. “We fought back and kept battling all night.”

That was despite Cameron Atkinson’s 3-point barrage and Rocks coach Marc Polite switching to a 1-3-1 defense in the second half. Atkinson buried six consecutive 3-pointers in the second quarter and made eight overall — tying the single-game school record — as Rock Island went up 34-28 at halftime.

A 7-0 run over the first four minutes of the third quarter gave the Rocks their largest lead at 41-28 as the Blue Devils committed four turnovers and attempted only one shot inside the 3-point arc in that stretch.

“It took us a little while to get comfortable attacking the 1-3-1,” Douglas said. “We kind of just wanted to ping-pong the ball back and forth. Once we saw we could attack some holes and create, whether it was outside or inside, our confidence started rising.”

The Blue Devils closed the third quarter by scoring on four of their final six possessions and opened the fourth quarter by scoring on eight of their first nine possessions to go ahead 56-54.

After the Rocks’ Amarion Nimmers split a pair of free throws and Atkinson made two to get within 58-57 with 20.5 seconds remaining, Longcor made 1 of 2 free throws to give Rock Island a chance to tie or take the lead.

Nimmers drove to the basket on the Rocks’ final possession, but instead of trying to score, he kicked the ball to Atkinson in the corner. His 3-point attempt rimmed out, and Talton grabbed the rebound, was fouled and made two free throws to ice the victory.

The 6-foot-6 senior made 14 of 16 free throws overall and finished with 30 points.

Not bad for a guy who played the final two games of the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic with a sprained ankle.

“I give all the glory to God for allowing me to be able to play at my full strength,” Talton said. “Tonight felt really good.”

The comeback made it complete.

“It takes a little bit of everyone buying into their role, making stops defensively, being strong with the ball, stepping to the free-throw line,” Douglas said. “We did a little bit of everything. … For us to be able to put some stops together, it was a testament to our guys and everyone having a part in it.”