Rock Island 57, Lady Potters 52
I was in mid-season form. The Potters not so much.
I first stopped at a Dr. Gyro’s cure-your-hunger cafe on Rock Island’s 18th Avenue. I asked, “Where am I?”
Lost. Again. Driving to the season opener. In a city. In the daylight. Wait until I try to find the map-dot village of Dunlap with snow flying sideways across the tundra on a February night. Next stop, a Saskatchewan pizza parlor.
Anyway, early on today, the Potters played about the way you might have expected. It’s a young team that will be learning its way around for a while. Five turnovers in today’s first four minutes. Nerves. Coach Bob Becker used nine players in the first quarter. They scored six points. The good news was, Rock Island scored seven.
The Potters led at halftime, 28-24, though I made a note at the beginning the third quarter: “RI mean, aggressive, pushing, shoving. M weak.” Even so, Morton was still up four when Tatym Lamprecht made back-to-back 3-pointers in 40 seconds to push the lead to 41-31 with 1:54 left in the quarter. Ellie VanMeenen’s short jumper a minute later made it 44-36.
From there, the Potters, too, were lost. Their lead fell to 46-45 when Rock Island opened the fourth quarter with three 3-pointers in 68 seconds. It was 50-all with 5:06 to play when this happened: A referee decided the game.
I know, I know, c’mon, Dave, don’t start with the zebras.
Yes, yes, I know, the egotist in question did not cause the Potters to score only two more points in the game’s most important five minutes.
But I am here to say that an I-am-God-and-you’re-not referee might have caused a young team to wonder WTH’s going on.
With 3:52 to play, he called a 5-second violation on a Potter ballhandler even as she was advancing the ball down the right side. Turnover.
One minute later, he called a 3-seconds in the lane violation when the Potters were moving the ball on the perimeter with no one looking into the paint. Turnover.
I know, c’mon, Dave, quit nit-picking the poor fella. Maybe, I admit, he could justify those calls on video. But c’mon. He made calls that he did not have to make for one reason, to show just how extraordinary he is. He could have let the girls play. Reminded me of a Deer Creek cop I met once. Noon hour, flashed his lights. I stopped. “Twenty-nine miles per hour through town, 25 limit,” he said. Really, did I leave peeling-out rubber in front of the Village Tap? (I wanted to say.) “And you rolled through the stop sign.” Oh, Lord. Barney Fife has moved from Mayberry to Deer Creek! (Didn’t say that, either.)
From that 41-31 lead, then, Morton was outscored in the last 10 minutes, 26-11.
Not that the Potters made any of my retired-sportswriter complaints, nor should they have, for they lost this one on their own. They gave up 9 3-pointers! Nine! (To their four). They allowed themselves to be shoved around under the boards by the beefier, more aggressive Rock Island girls. Mostly, they sabotaged themselves with sloppy, hurried ballhandling – also “indecisiveness,” to quote Becker– that led to too many turnovers of the unforced persuasion. “This is one that probably got away. But we’ll be back at it in practice, and we gotta get better in the next couple weeks.” (Morton next plays on the Friday after Thanksgiving in its own tournament, against Batavia.)
Addy Engel led Morton’s scoring with 18 points (14 in the first half, but when moved into the post the second half she seldom touched the ball, so ineffective were Morton’s ballhandlers). Lamprecht had 11, Izzy Hutchinson 9, Magda Lopko and VanMeenen 5 each, and Graci Junis 4.
This Rock Island team, by the way, lost its season opener at home this week to Peoria High, 61-26. Uh-oh.