Sycamore 48
Lady Potters 43

But if we count just the last three quarters this afternoon, it was . . .
Lady Potters 43
Sycamore 25

Alas, alack, and sad to say, the rules insist that we must count the first quarter, which was . . .
Sycamore 23
Lady Potters 0

I will spell out that last one. Sycamore twenty-three, Lady Potters zero nada nil nothin’ zilch and rotten bananas.

Never in my hundred years writing about the Lady Potters has there been such a thing. It has worked the other way with the Lady Potters pitching a shutout for a quarter, once for a half. But this? The Potters on the other end of a beat-down? Good grief. Where have you gone, Brandi Bisping, a lonely PotterNation turns its eyes to you.

It wasn’t as if the Potters were thrown in against the Boston Celtics; Sycamore had two really good players, a 6-foot-4 post and a D-1 commit point guard, and yet the Spartans had won only two of eight games.

But when the Potters make eight turnovers in the first quarter – my count – and when they get “no decent shots” – my note – and when they watch that big post player get five quick, easy buckets – lots of watching by the Potters smallish bigs – a partisan observer could be forgiven for wondering if a 110-mile school bus trip in fog and rain had caused the Potters to sleepwalk for a quarter.

I mentioned Brandi Bisping, an all-timer in Potter lore, three times the beating heart of state championship teams. No one would sleepwalk through a Brandi Bisping minute. Her idea of basketball was get ‘em down, stand on their throats, and then, when they call timeout to check their extremities, you smile at the poor suffering darlings, maybe even curtsy, blow ‘em a kiss. And walk on.

Instead of that, these Potters too often are passive. They allow the enemy to set the terms of engagement. Now 6-3 for the season, the Potters have lost all three of their road games. In those losses, they have gone quiet for long stretches of play. We thought it was bad when Rock Island made a 19-6 run. It was worse when Metamora went 18-1. Those nights, next to a first-quarter 23-0 shutout, were sundaes with a cherry on top.

Oh, we might say the Potters made a great comeback from looming catastrophe. Call it a gallant run. Say they never quit. All that would be true. (We’ll get to details in a minute). But we should hear the coaching truth from Bob Becker. Even after first praising his team for a “valiant comeback,” the Potters coach made it clear he was not selling only soft soap tonight.

“A ‘nice comeback’? No,” he said. “A nice comeback would be coming back to win.”

In this comeback, whatever the adjective – I call it astonishing – the Potters became the aggressors at both ends, frightening the Sycamores with a full-court press, scratching and clawing their way to a 22-2 run in 9 minutes and 17 seconds. Sycamore’s lead, once 23-zilch, was now 25-22.

In that run, four Potters scored: Izzy Hutchinson had 11, with a 3 from the low left corner, a put-back, and four free throws earned on just-try-to-stop-me drives to the hoop; Tatym Lamprecht had six, Addy Engel 3, Ellie VanMeenen 2.

Twice more, Sycamore seemed to have the game in hand with double figure leads. Twice more, Morton refused to go away, staying in its aggressors’ press, attacking in the paint at every opportunity. Take away the cursed first quarter, it was a beautiful basketball game played by both sides.

With 2:04 to play, the Potters were still alive. From 11 down midway through the fourth quarter, they had cut it to 8. The clutch baskets came from Lamprecht, a 3 from the right corner, and from VanMeenen, scoring against the big girl on a rebound.

But at 1:25, a Sycamore 3 made it 48-37.

Game over?

Not yet. At 1:12, Lamprecht two free throws. At :55, Julia Laufenberg a put-back. When Sycamore missed two free throws at :13.2, Lamprecht scored on a runner in the paint. It was 48-43. There were four seconds to play. I saw the clock. Before the clock operator caught the Morton timeout call, the clock showed :01.5. A long in-bounds pass ended it.

Morton’s scoring:

Lamprecht 14, Hutchinson 11, VanMeenen 9, Engel 7, Laufenberg 2.