True believers: Raiders keep faith until final PK caroms off crossbar, outlast Cyclones to win sectional championship

QUINCY — Aly Young couldn’t stop smiling or shaking her head.

Her excitement matched her disbelief.

“It’s still just really crazy,” said Young, a sophomore goalkeeper on the Quincy Notre Dame girls soccer team. “I keep saying, ‘What the heck just happened?’”

In one sense, the improbable happened. In another, destiny did.

Either way, the Raiders find themselves on the brink of returning to the state tournament thanks to a stingy defensive effort, some fortuitous bounces in a penalty-kick shootout and the never-ending belief they would survive.

After playing Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin to a scoreless tie through regulation and two 10-minute overtimes Friday at Advance Physical Therapy Field, QND won the PK shootout 3-2 to capture the Class 1A QND Sectional championship.

Although Young, who made a critical save in the shootout, admitted her emotions ran the gamut throughout that game, one emotion exceeded all others in the end.

“Obviously, pride,” Young said. “That Raider pride. My team came through clutch and made their kicks and I made the save. There’s a lot of pride in all of us doing that.”

It earned the Raiders (20-3-3) a spot in the Class 1A Columbia Super-sectional at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday against Belleville Althoff. The Crusaders (21-5-2) also won a PK shootout, beating Columbia 2-1.

“I’ve been nervous all day,” said QND junior midfielder Avery Keck, who converted the winning PK. “Now I can just breathe and relax until Tuesday.”

Should the super-sectional be as tense, the Raiders will know they can weather the storm.

That comes with preparation.

During Wednesday’s practice, assistant coach Jason Keller took the Raiders through a shootout scenario and determined which 10 shooters the Raiders would use. QND coach Mark Longo and Keller determined the order in case a shootout was ever needed.

After 80 scoreless minutes of regulation and the first 10-minute overtime period, Longo wasn’t ready to give in to the notion a shootout was inevitable.

“At the end of the first overtime, Jason said, ‘What are we thinking about with PKs?’” Longo said. “I said to him, ‘We’re not thinking about those right now.’ We never think about PKs until we get to PKs.”

They got there after a second scoreless 10-minute extra frame.

With the game officials deciding all kicks would go toward the south goal, the Raiders won the coin toss and chose to shoot first. Junior sweeper Eva Dickerman buried her shot for a 1-0 lead.

SHG’s Callie Houston answered by beating Young. A miss by QND put pressure on Young, but she settled her nerves, took instruction from the sideline and dove to her right to stop a shot by SHG’s Ava Danielson.

“I saw (Keller) and he pointed to that side,” Young said. “He’s always telling me to see where they line up with the ball. Her hips were pointing right there, so I thought, ‘Just go for it.’”

The hips are the tell.

“If you approach the ball and your hips are this way, you’ve got to kick it that way,” Longo said.

Cyclones goalkeeper Cheresse Mitchell batted down Lia Quintero’s shot in the third round, while SHG’s Caroline Sheehan hit her PK in the lower left corner to go up 2-1. Raiders freshman Annie Eaton also went low left to convert and tie the shootout before Cyclones’ Caroline Lambert missed wide right.

Keck was next and calmly buried the go-ahead PK into the right side netting.

“I was a little nervous,” Keck said. “I just knew where I was going to put it, and I put it right where I was thinking. I go up and look to the left and kick it to the right. And it just went perfectly where I was going to kick.”

SHG had a chance to tie and force extra kicks, but Lauren Johannes hit the crossbar on the final attempt.

Then, the celebration was on.

“The emotions that go with PKs are really hard to describe,” Young said. “It’s the constant reassurance of ‘You’ve got this. Your team believes in you.’ So you have to believe in yourself and make the save. We believed in ourselves. We truly believed.”