Strong connection: Raiders share basketball, scoring and responsibilities in dismantling Rockets

QUINCY — One of the themes Quincy Notre Dame boys basketball coach Kevin Meyer touched on during his team’s shootaround Saturday afternoon was staying connected.

The Raiders were locked together front to back and side to side Saturday night in a 74-38 dismantling of Rushville-Industry at The Pit in the first meeting between the schools since 1967.

After dropping three of its last four games to three teams mentioned in the Class 1A state poll — Jacksonville Routt, Southeastern and Liberty — QND needed something to change its perspective on things heading into the postseason.

“I thought it was a good bounce back for us, a lot of good energy out there, and I’m really super proud of them,” Meyer said. 

It was a sizzling start for the Raiders as a bucket by junior guard Jackson Stratton capped off a 10-0 run out of the gate.

Despite the Rockets interrupting that run with a 3-pointer by senior guard Dillion Schmidt, a three-point play by Raiders junior forward Jake Wallingford following a field goal by junior guard Charlie Lavery capped an 11-0 run to end the first quarter and give QND a 21-3 lead.

Friday night, Meyer felt like his team was passive.

Saturday night, they were aggressive.

“We knew we wanted to come out and not necessarily send a message but come out and know that we can play at a high level and we can play at a good pace,” Meyer said. “I thought it was really important for us to do that tonight.” 

QND had players who don’t get many minutes contribute heavily to Saturday night’s victory. 

One of them was senior forward Calvin Lavery. 

“We’ve been talking about games we just have to win to get back in the win column,” Lavery said. “It was for sure big for us tonight, especially putting up that many points, and figuring out how to score again.” 

This night will sink in Lavery’s senior year memory bank like his first 3-pointer of the season did from the top of the key as it increased the Raiders’ lead to 58-24 just 30 seconds into the third quarter. 

“It wasn’t my first in my career, but it was this season,” Lavery said. “I mean, I had one in the first half I passed up, and it was time and score moment, but this one I shot I was wide open, so I might as well pull it. And it felt good.” 

QND senior Blake Bozarth hit three 3-pointers himself.

“It felt good to finally get everybody back and having fun in a game after we’ve had a pretty dry spell,” Bozarth said. “I felt like everybody is in good spirits, and I just think if we can carry that into the postseason, it can help us out and take us far.” 

Bozarth believes getting everybody on the team minutes for one of the first times this season was great for them. 

Meyer thought so too, and liked what he saw. 

“I thought the thing for us tonight was ‘Everybody’,” Meyer said. “We are dressing 14, we have one guy that is injured right now, so all 15 guys were engaged. They were cheering for each other, they were engaged offensively, defensively, timeouts, everything tonight. It was a good win for us and that’s our blueprint now. That’s the base we got to build on it.” 

The Raiders composed a nice run earlier in the season, winning five straight games in 13 days. It begged the question, “Can we repeat that energy?”

“Same thing tonight, It’s got to be offense clicking and us sharing the ball,” Meyer said. “We had 11 guys score tonight. That’s big for us. I think we had four or five guys in double figures, so we shared the ball and did a good job offensively. Defensively, our rotations were good, and then we were in transition. Can you repeat that? If we repeat that, I think they have a chance to do something special here as the postseason gets ready to start.”