By MATT SCHUCKMAN
Herald-Whig Sports Writer
Mark Longo's scheduling strategy tends to enliven the Quincy Notre Dame soccer players because it limits the number of practices the final three weeks of the regular season.
Yet, in the first half Friday night, the veteran head coach wondered if his team had a pulse.
"At halftime, I said to them, 'This is game time and you're acting like it's worse than practice,'" Longo said.
They showed it wasn't so bad.
Playing with the wind at their backs in the second half, the Lady Raiders scored three goals in the first 10 minutes and beat Rolla (Mo.) 3-0 in the opening round of the QND/Advance Physical Therapy Tournament at the Paul Dennis Soccer Complex.
The Lady Raiders (12-2-2) play twice today -- 9 a.m. against Bloomington Central Catholic and 1 p.m. against Morton -- in hopes of recapturing the tournament title for the first time since 2005.
"I don't know if (the halftime speech) had anything to do with them playing better in the second half, but we were more aggressive going to the goal," Longo said. "I just wanted us to be more aggressive."
It didn't take long.
On a throw-in near the flag in the right corner less than two minutes into the half, Erin Thomas delivered the ball in the box to Jennifer Adam, who outmuscled Rolla defender Jaclyn Standfast to poke the ball inside the post.
"Thank goodness Erin called for me to come because I was just going to wait and stay behind," Adam said. "She yelled for me to come this way, so it was a good job of talking on her part."
The chatter didn't die. Two minutes after going up 1-0, Adam won a ball on the left wing and centered to Thomas, who scored on a left-footed shot for the two-goal lead.
"Both of them were definitely lucky," Adam said of the first two goals.
Actually, luck had a hand in all three.
Carrying in from the right wing, QND midfielder Alex Reis ripped a shot that ricocheted off Rolla defender Amanda Rogers and into the net for the three-goal edge.
"One of the strongest things we do is we pressure and we pressure," Adam said. "We weren't doing that in the first half. ... We changed that. In the second half, we pressured the whole time."
The defense did, too. Despite starting with a 35 mph wind at their backs, the Bulldogs (13-6) were unable to put a shot on goal in the first half. They had just two shots on goal overall.
"Everyone stayed on their mark and they stepped up," sophomore stopper Claire Obert said. "We didn't have any complaints."
Especially since Longo's decision to take the wind in the second half worked perfectly.
"We wanted our defense in front of us more than anything," Longo said. "We knew Rolla was going to be better than they were last year, so we thought we should see what they were going to do defensively first."
-- mschuckman@whig.com/221-3366
