‘There’s more in the tank’: QND boys rely on defense to pave way to sectional title game

STANFORD, Ill. — The first four minutes of the second half Wednesday night may have been the most energetic and engaged stretch defensively the Quincy Notre Dame boys basketball team has played this season.

The Raiders even smiled at the suggestion they are at their best right now.

But don’t read too much into that. They insist they haven’t peaked.

“You never want to say you’re at your best, but we’re playing at a high level right now,” junior forward Jake Wallingford said. “But I still think there’s more in the tank.”

It’s imperative there is.

QND earned the opportunity to play for a sectional championship by outscoring Maroa-Forsyth 9-0 to start the third quarter and fending off any run the Trojans put together thereafter. It resulted in a 60-42 victory in the semifinals of the Class 2A Stanford Olympia Sectional.

“I still think there is another gear we can get to if we clean up a few things that we mess up here or there, but overall, we’re playing pretty good,” junior point guard Jake Hoyt said. “We still need to clean up our help rotations defensively to prevent easy dishes that lead to layups.

“If we clean that up, we’ll be pretty close.”

That should make for quite a tussle with Bloomington Central Catholic, which is playing as well as it has all season. The Saints beat Auburn 58-46 in Tuesday’s semifinal and have won five of their last six games heading into the sectional title game at 7 p.m. Friday at Olympia High School.

BCC (19-15) should test QND’s defensive intensity as 6-foot-6 sophomore Collin Hayes complements three potent 3-point shooters.

The Raiders (21-11) are confident they will be up to the task.

“We have to get after it,” junior forward Josh Bocke said. “We have to bring the energy.”

QND coach Kevin Meyer knows they’re capable of doing that.

“I’ve been telling them all season how good they could be defensively,” Meyer said. “Sometimes you bang your head up against the wall with that, but they’re finally getting it. The key is Braden (Sheffield) and Alex (Connoyer). They give us some toughness. Then you have Jackson (Stratton) flying around. Then Jake Hoyt is slow and steady wins the race. And (Wallingford) is cleaning things up on the back end.

“It’s the whole puzzle coming together at the right time.”

It was perfectly illustrated at the start of the second half.

A lackluster first five minutes became an afterthought when QND closed the first quarter on a 6-0 run. The lead grew to as many as 14 points on two separate occasions in the second quarter, but Maroa-Forsyth closed the half on a 10-3 run to trail only 31-24 at the break.

The Trojans turned the ball over to start the second half and committed six turnovers in their first eight possessions. They trailed 40-24 before Ethan Willoughby scored with four minutes remaining in third quarter only after Wallingford blocked a shot seconds before.

The stretch was a dynamic showcase of pressure and persistence by the Raiders.

“It’s all about defense,” Wallingford said. “We did a good job of boxing out and keeping them off the 3-point line.”

Clearing the glass helped, too.

The Trojans had four offensive rebounds in the first six minutes that led to five second-chance points. They added two more offensive rebounds in the second quarter as they’re physicality and toughness seemed to allow them to win balls that hit the floor.

“On the scouting report, we talked about how hard they were going to work,” said Meyer, who got 16 points from Sheffield and 13 from Wallingford. “That’s a team in a league that every night is blue collar, banging on each other. So we talked about working our tails off on the defensive glass and then we go hit the glass offensively.”

The Raiders didn’t take kindly to allowing the offensive rebounds or the response it elicited from the bench.

“Then we have Coach over there yelling at us,” Wallingford said. “That’s never a good thing.”

QND allowed only one offensive rebound in the second half, and it came after Wallingford blocked a shot out of bounds.

“We got tougher and did our jobs,” Wallingford said. “And we’re not done yet.”