The last place Kassidy Shurman wants to be is under the basket. There are big people there. She is a little one, a charm on your charm bracelet, 5-foot-2, or “5-2 1/2 in my basketball shoes.” So what happens tonight? The Lady Potters are flying on a 4-on-1 fast break. Shurman is shuffled under the basket, on the low block, left side. And not only is she lost from sight among all those big people, she is stuck with the ball. What to do now?
Next thing I saw, the ball popped up from wayyyyyy down below, rose wayyyyy high, kissed the board and fell in.
Ace reporter that I am, I turned to my neighbor and said, “What happened?”
“Left-handed, too,” a reliable source reported.
From somewhere very near the very hardwood itself, using her off-hand, forcing the solitary Limestone defender into a foul, Shurman had twisted in the night’s most improbable shot. With the free throw added, Shurman’s three points followed a Tenley Dowell 3-point shot and sent the Lady Potters on a 21-0 run that guaranteed a victory over Limestone High. The final: 50-34.
Before that run, in fact for most of the first half, the Potters had turned one of their signature strengths, unselfishness, into a turnover-producing liability. They seemed to make one too many passes on every other possession. The last pass would be too cute by half, someone thinking that a clever pass would work when the right pass was one not made at all. Credit should go to Limestone’s defense as well. Of Morton’s first six field goals, four were 3-pointers – a sign that the Potters couldn’t move the ball inside.
Limestone had taken the first-half lead four times, last at 20-19 with 2:30 left in the second quarter.
Before the game, Morton coach Bob Becker had written five lines of pep talk on a whiteboard at the bench:
REBOUND
ATTACK
BE THE AGGRESSORS
TOUGHNESS
COMPETE TOGETHER
Down 20-19, the aggressors’ attack began with the Dowell 3-pointer and Shurman’s magic act. Josi Becker added a layup and Dowell followed with a 15-footer to end the half, Morton now leading, 29-20.
Then it was Brandi Bisping’s turn. Morton’s defense switched from its first-half man to a 1-3-1 zone, sending Limestone into confusion. On offense, Bisping sent Limestone into defeat. She scored the second half’s first 11 points in less than 3 ½ minutes. First came a 3-pointer at 7:28, then a put-back of her own missed 3-pointer at 6:14, followed by two free throws at 5:39, a power move inside at 4:28, and a fast break layup at 4:00.
The 21-0 run took only 6 minutes and 3 seconds. Morton had come from 20-19 down to 40-20 up. Game over.
Bisping led Morton’s scoring with 18. Josi Becker had 11, Dowell 7 (back from that ankle sprain, limited in movement but playing well), Shurman 6, Lindsey Dullard 3, Caylie Jones and Megan Gold 2 each, Courtney Jones 1.
Updating the numbers: the Potters, now 8-0, have won 21 straight reaching back to last season’s state championship run and 27 straight in the Potterdome. They have won 74 of their last 80 games.
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A happy note on Chandler Ryan, the Potters’ all-stater now a freshman at Florida Gulf Coast University: Her recent knee injury did not require a second ACL surgery. Scar tissue was removed. She will resume workouts and may play in a month or so.
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Because the boys’ teams played the second game – it’s an annual Morton-Limestone agreement – there were more than the usual number of people in the Potterdome tonight. Among those new people were members of the Morton High dance team and the boys’ team cheerleaders, four or five dozen dancers and cheerleaders in all. The Morton boys won, 61-38. It was a nice game. Not a Lady Potters game, but nice. Those new people should come out more often.