On Monday, February 20th, the Morton Lady Potters (30-2) were ready to play. Ready to play defense. Ready to play offense. Ready to beat the stuffing out of the AP 12th ranked Galesburg Silver Streaks (24-8) by the score of 54-24. Yes, this was the same Galesburg team that beat Morton 37-40 back on January 16th, but it was not the same Morton team. Not even close. This Morton team played with a purpose on both ends of the court. This Morton team looks polished, determined, focused and energized. Galesburg, like Peoria Central, jumped out to a 5-0 lead, but like Peoria Central “that didn’t last long”.
Morton surged past the Silver Streaks on the strength of their swarming team defense and the return of Brandi “Beastmode” Bisping. Yep, I’m declaring the Beast officially back (healthy) and that is not something that Lady Potters’ opponents want to hear.
Back during the State Farm Classic, I wrote an article about the Lady Potters learning to play without Brandi, who had to miss several weeks with mononucleosis. In that article, I made the analogy that if the Lady Potters were your dominant hand, Brandi Bisping would be the thumb. The point of that analogy was the fingers were learning to play without their thumb. Well the thumb is back and the dominant hand is now able to make a powerful fist and is in full working order. So far in post season play, Morton has beaten Peoria Manual by 31, Peoria Central by 20 and now Galesburg by 30. For those of you that slept your afternoons away in Math class, that is an average of 27 points per game. In the post season.
Now, this is IHSA Class 3A post season basketball, and traditionally, the road gets harder the further you march towards Redbird Arena, but I really like the way the Lady Potters are playing right now and I think they can even get better. They weren’t perfect in any of these post season wins, but they were more than good enough so far. And if they can turn the teamwork level up another notch? Well, lets just say the ring fitter is going to be busy again.
If you were one of the few that didn’t make it to the Sectional Semi-Final game, you missed an awesome display of support by the Morton faithful. The Red Sea of Morton flooded the Limestone gymnasium to support the Lady Potters. It was a beautiful thing. The student section was extraordinary and made their presence felt loud and clear. As one fan put it – “We have the best damn student section in the State of Illinois”. Hard to disagree with that. Bravo!!!
Advancing to the Sectional Final on Thursday, February 23rd, the Lady Potters will face another familiar and formidable foe – The Normal University High School (U-High) Pioneers. U-High (28-4) advanced to the Sectional Final game by beating a very good Peoria Richwoods team 27-26 in a defensive battle. U-High is ranked 6th in Class 3A in the latest AP poll and two of it’s 4 losses have come by the hands of Morton 42-39 and 48-40. Their other two losses were to #7 Rochester.
U-High is well coached and an experienced, smart team. They hustle, are scrappy and play tenacious defense. Morton and U-High traditionally play close games, so I don’t expect a 30 point win in this game. U-High will prefer that the game is played in 30’s or 40’s and will likely try to slow the game down with long possessions, particularly if they jump out to a lead. However, if the Lady Potters play with the intensity and focus on both ends that they have been playing with, and the Red Sea returns to Limestone on Thursday to help make that happen, I expect Morton will advance to their 3rd Super Sectional in the last 3 years and their quest for a 3rd straight State Championship will continue.
Thanks to Don Pyles Photography for providing these photos of the game. If you are interested in purchasing any of these images, please email Don Pyles at snazy85@mtco.com
To view photos of the Sectional Semi-Final game taken by the Peoria Journal Star, click the following link: http://bit.ly/2mgMS9f