There came a time when Brandi Bisping found a path around and through traffic for a layup. So sensational was her work that it caused hundreds of Morton High School students, raucous all night, rocking alongside parents, grandparents, and other more sedate if no less thrilled Lady Potters fans – it caused those students to send up a Bisping-appreciation chant, “YOU CAN’T STOP HER . . . YOU CAN’T STOP HER.”

She was not the only unstoppable. The Potters have five people the coach identifies as offensive “weapons.” Any of them can put up 20 points a night. They have what they call “lock-down” defense whether they’re in man-to-man or zone or scaring the bejabbers out of you with a full-court trapping press. Because they can go eight deep with fresh legs, they are relentless, they are in perpetual motion, they never allow you to breathe freely. Besides that, their toughest nut has a quote for you. “There’s not a tougher team in Illinois,” Bisping said.

All that is true, proven by results, and it is a wonder because, truth to tell, I never thought the Potters could win a state championship. That’s a Chicago thing. No small-town public school in 37 seasons of Illinois girls basketball had ever done it – until the girls from Morton’s pumpkin patches did it two seasons ago – and then did it AGAIN last season – and now talk boldly about finishing off a THREE-PEAT the first weekend in March.

How boldly do they talk?

Listen up.

“For all those reasons,” Bisping said, an allusion to my catalogue of stuff that good basketball teams do, “that’s why we’re going all the way.”

“Win it all again?” I said.

“We didn’t come all this way to lose,” she said.

Tonight the Potters won their third straight sectional championship by dominating Normal’s U High, 58-42. Now 31-2 for the season, they are three victories away from the three-peat – a feat done only once in Illinois girls history. The Potters play Monday in the Manlius super-sectional against Stillman Valley. The winner moves to the final four at Illinois State University’s Redbird Arena.

Here’s how good Morton was tonight: U High came in with a 28-4 record and it never led once. It never had a chance, not even when it trailed only 18-15 late in the first half. For it was there, in the half’s last minute and 10 seconds, that Morton not only achieved separation on the scoreboard but achieved separation in thought. I will explain.

It was 18-15 when Josi Becker did her thing. The coach, Bob Becker, says he can’t brag on Josi Becker because he’s her father. So I’m here to tell you what Josi did. She did amazing. How she got there, I have no clue. But somehow she came dribbling from deep in the right corner. She’s a point guard, 5-foot-3. As she moved from right to left, she disappeared into a forest of the big people clogging the lane.

Then, this was the amazing, she reappeared on the left side of the lane. From there she scored on a smooth left-handed layup.

Now it’s 20-15 with 1:10 left in the half.

The lock-down defense stopped U High, and Bisping wrapped her bear-claw hands on an offensive rebound. Falling down, she moved a pass to Becker at the top of the key. From there, a 3-pointer.

Now it’s 23-15 with 29 seconds left.

At the other end, Bisping took a rebound with seven seconds remaining. It seemed she would have time to try a mid-court shot. She did have time. But no mid-court shot.

On the run with the ball, she did not slow down. She sprinted past three U High defenders directly to the basket and scored on a layup at the buzzer.

Now it’s 25-15.

The separation on the scoreboard was one thing. Ten points is a lot better than three. The more important separation was in Morton’s sudden brilliance. It was the kind of foot-on-their-neck dominance that affirms one team’s confidence and lets the other know the party’s over, turn out the lights. After that 7-0 burst in 70 seconds, Morton never allowed U High to come closer than eight points. By the third quarter’s end, Morton had built its lead to 20 points, 43-23.

We were speaking of toughness. Here’s tough. Brandi Bisping again. Midway in that game-turning third quarter, Bisping did her thing. She drove to the basket as if the hounds of hell were at her heels. A U High girl thought to stop the all-stater. That called for a hip-check blocking foul that sent Bisping ker-rashing to the floor. Only when she stepped to the free throw line did anyone notice the blood.

Because she ripped some skin from her left wrist, the game was stopped momentarily to allow a trainer to wrap tape around the wound. As Bisping went to the line, a U High player told a referee, “She’s got blood on her shorts.” By rule, Bisping had to leave the game until the blood was rubbed away.

“When they said that about the blood, I was thinking, ‘You must really want me out of here,’” Bisping said later.

Well, yeah, they would want that. Morton led, 30-19, and Bisping had scored 13 herself. The curious episode of Bisping’s injury came early in a 15-4 run that settled the issue. Lindsey Dullard had started it with a driving layup off an in-bounds play. Kassidy Shurman made a free throw in Bisping’s place. Then Caylie Jones dropped in a layup. Tenley Dowell followed with a 3 and a fast-break layup. That’s when Bisping found her way to a layup and a 40-23 lead that set off the YOU CAN’T STOP HER chant, followed by another directed to U High students across the way, “WHY SO QUIET? WHY SO QUIET?”

For all that, my favorite play came next. To say it was another 3 by Dowell is to leave out the wonder of it. It began, as nearly all of Morton’s offense begins, with the ball in Becker’s hands. The Potters wanted the quarter’s last shot. From a spot near the arc on the right side, Becker moved the ball to Bisping inside. From there to Dullard at the top of the key. Over to Dowell behind the arc on the left side. All of those passes done more quickly than I can type the words. And Dowell’s 3-pointer falls in with the clock showing :01.6.”

Just beautiful.

Bisping led Morton’s scoring with 17. She also had 9 rebounds. Becker had 16 points, Dowell 12. Shurman, Dullard, and Caylie Jones had 4 apiece. Maddy Becker had 1.

“We’re playing our best basketball right now,” Bob Becker said, and no one could argue that, certainly not the losing coach, Laura Sellers, whose team has now lost six straight to Morton, three this year and three last year. It was, I guess, an insensitive question to ask a coach whose team finished 28-5 – “A great U High team,” Becker said – but lost three times to Morton.

I asked Sellers, “Can Morton win it all again?”

The poor coach said, almost in a whisper, “Sure.”