This summer I wanted someone to dive off the high board at the Morton community pool with a basketball in hand. I asked three or four of the Morton High School Lady Potters if they’d volunteer for such a stunt. Only Claire Kraft said yes. She didn’t just say yes. She said, “YES!” She said, “I’LL DO IT!” She said it with enthusiasm suggesting, “Don’t you dare ask anybody else!”

So there’s a picture in my book about the 2016-17 season – “The Unbelievables” – of Kraft rocketing down a slide and flipping a basketball overhead. (She did the high board, too, but we liked the slide photograph more.) The picture captures the essential Claire Kraft. Even after an hour of high-board splashings before we went to the slide, she’s still smiling. The whole thing is a hoot.

I thought of that summer day with about a minute and a half to play in tonight’s 72-36 romp over Pekin at the Potterdome.

That’s when Kraft found herself with the ball at the top of the key. She was a foot behind the 3-point arc. Considering she’s maybe the 11th or 12th player on a 14-player roster . . .considering she’s a post player . . . considering a 3-point shot is the last thing she’s good at . . . considering she had scored two points this season, both on free throws . . . considering all that, it was memorable that the Potters on the bench rose as one, shouting, raising a ruckus, demanding that Claire Kraft put the rock up from downtown.

So she did.

“I was wide open,” she explained.

Alas, her shot was wide right. Airball.

Which caused her to smile and hustle back on defense. Such a hoot. To quote her teammate, Megan Gold, “Claire’s goofy, she’s fun, she’s light-hearted.” To quote her coach, Bob Becker, “If I’m mad at something in a game, I look down the bench to see Claire. I can’t be mad if I’m looking at Claire. She’s a great kid, just fun-loving.”

So, a minute later, the ball again came to Kraft, this time in the deep left corner, again a step outside the arc, and this time the bench wasn’t just cheering, people now were hopping up and down in anticipation of Claire Kraft’s first 3-pointer ever . . .

Even as Kraft held the ball in that corner, she knew what her teammates wanted. She was leaning toward the bench. She saw all nine of them, demanding she try again, and here’s what Claire Kraft did next . . .

She smiled, she laughed, and she passed the ball to someone else.

“I didn’t want to airball another one,” she said.

She could’ve airballed a dozen of them and done no harm on this night, for the Potters took the heart out of Pekin early and, to quote a country song, stomped that sucker flat.

After five minutes, Pekin led, 11-10.

Five minutes later, Morton led, 28-11.

That 18-0 run was built on defensive pressure that exhausted Pekin physically and psychically. Becker had put a note on his whiteboard: “Amped Up Def.” That, the Potters had. The last thing any Pekin player wanted was the ball. The ball became a magnet drawing two and three Potters to it in a mad rush to cause dicombobulation. The telling image of Pekin’s distress came early, less than six minutes into the first quarter. The Dragons’ star, Maddy Cash, bent double on defense. She clutched her shorts with both hands, resting until she remembered how to breathe.

The 18-0 run: Josi Becker a 3, Lindsey Dullard a 3, Dullard two free throws, Kassidy Shruman a 3, Peyton Dearing a 3 (notice a trend? The Potters had 11 3’s divvied among 7 players), Dullard a layup, Tenley Dowell a layup – all of this work done efficiently, confidently, and with ball movement, especially on the Dowell bucket, that reminded me of my second-favorite basketball team, the Golden State Warriors. It began with Shurman’s entry pass from the left arc to Caylie Jones on the left low block. Jones moved the ball three feet to Dullard in the paint. Dullard bounced it to Dowell on the right low block. Four passes done quickly and unhurried. Ball movement that left Pekin wondering what the hell just happened.

As if an 18-0 run wasn’t enough, the Potters did a 20-0 run to begin the second half – again with defense so good that Pekin made 12 straight trips without scoring. By then, the Potters led, 56-23.

Yes, yes. Pekin’s not much. A 20-0 run by the three-time state champions against an exhausted, not-much-good-anyway team is small reason to celebrate. Still, I saw one great reason: Tenley Dowell’s outside game is coming back. She made two 3-pointers in that killing run, the first time she has made two 3’s in a quarter since the season’s third game. Against the very best teams, Dowell needs 3’s to set up her slashing moves inside. After three straight games in which she hadn’t made a 3, Dowell now has made two 3’s in three of the Potters’ last four games.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 14. Josi Becker had 12, Dullard 9, Caylie Jones 8, Peyton Dearing 7, Kassidy Shurman 6, Maddy Becker and Bridget Wood 5 each, Kathryn Reiman 3, Courtney Jones 2, and Megan Gold 1.