Raiders set appropriate tone for new year by dispatching Mustangs in WCC matchup

QUINCY — The Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball team’s mission on Friday was simple — set the tone, not only for their West Central Conference game against Mendon Unity, but for the new calendar year and the grueling schedule that lies ahead.

The Raiders did just that in dispatching the Mustangs 67-20.

“You can’t be casual in games like this because you have to set the tone, and I thought we did that tonight,” Raiders coach Eric Orne said.

The Raiders, ranked sixth in Class 3A, opened up a 40-10 halftime lead thanks in large part to a second quarter in which they racked up 25 points and held the Mustangs to six.

“We were moving the ball great,” Raiders senior guard Sage Stratton said. “We were trying to get everybody to score tonight, and I think we did that really well. Every time we had a timeout, (Orne) would have a new goal for us to up the intensity. We did just that, and we had a really good game.” 

That lead grew in the third quarter, as the Raiders (13-0) opened the second half on a 13-0 run over the first five minutes. QND’s 40-point lead allowed Orne to rest his starters from midway through the third quarter until the end of the game. 

With another game against Havana at 1 p.m. Saturday and road games against Central-Southeastern, the No. 15 team in Class 2A, and Breese Central, the No. 1 team in Class 2A, on Jan. 7 and 11, respectively, Raiders junior forward Tristan Pieper welcomed the rest.

“In times like this where we have to play back to back, it helps us,” Pieper said. “When we can get other girls in, it just saves us and keeps us stronger for the next game.”

Seven different players scored in the third quarter, and 11 Raiders scored on Friday.

“We like our depth, and we play tremendous defense,” Orne said. “That’s what we base our season off of — playing great defense, building some offense off of that, getting those turnovers, and playing physical and tough. This team should have some maturity this year with having everybody back. The energy level has to be there each and every night.

“We saved some legs. We had a goal to make sure everybody in the starting lineup scored in that second half. Once that happened, I knew we were in a good spot.”

Stratton, who led the Raiders with 16 points, cheered along with her fellow starters as reserve players like Abbie Reed, who knocked down two 3-pointers in the second half, and Ellie Bozarth, who made two baskets including a Euro step layup in the third quarter, stretched the Raiders’ lead to as large as 48.

“They have good energy for us, and we want to have good energy for them because the energy on the bench creates energy for the players on the floor, so that’s what we always want to do,” Stratton said. “It’s super fun. We’re having fun together. We’re just cheering on our teammates. We cheer everything, like with threes, we were doing our own little thing for that, too. It’s just super fun watching our teammates grow.”

The Mustangs’ six points in the second quarter were their most in any frame. 

“We just kind of let our mistakes compound, and they were able to get easy transition buckets out of it,” Unity coach Cole Thompson said. “The game kind of got away from us there pretty quickly.”

Thompson said the Mustangs (9-8) can use the reps they got against the Raiders’ length and high-pressure defense to their advantage in the coming games.

“I think it’s really good playing a team like this because they pressure the ball so well,” Thompson said. “That’s something that we struggle with, so it’s good for us to get these live reps. We have a long way to go, and we didn’t handle the pressure very well, but I think being able to play teams like this, bigger teams that pressure up top and really make our guards really handle the ball, in the long run I think it will be beneficial for us.”