Lady Potters 67
East Peoria 38
Three minutes and 24 seconds in, the Potters were up 13-0.
I didn’t stop watching.
But this was a no-doubter. The Potters put defensive pressure on East Peoria and East Peoria had no clue. The only drama was the usual Morton-East Peoria question. When would the running-clock start? (Spoiler alert: it happened two minutes into the fourth quarter.)
I watched enough to see the Potters pick East Peoria pockets from end to end. I saw Addy Engel get every rebound she wanted. A deep-bench reserve, Kerrigan Vandel, a junior transfer from East Peoria, scored 8 points, including a 3-pointer on her first shot; she also was valuable defensively. I saw Tatym Lamprecht lead the Potters’ scoring with 15 the hard way (no 3’s, but two open-court steals for breakaway layups and one put-back wrenched away from the bigger people).
My favorite Tatym moment came when she was fouled late in the third quarter, just after those two breakaways.
She was flying in for yet another when an East Peoria defender threw the basketball version of a cross-body block that sent Lamprecht sprawling across the endline. To quote the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, “Tatym got HAMMERED!” In case the reporter standing two feet away didn’t hear him, Becker said, “HAMMERED!,” with yet another exclamation point. “And that’s a FACT,” he said.
When no referee thought the HAMMERING was a foul, Becker walked onto the court in the direction of a zebra on the far side. He also said some words that might have traveled well enough to catch the referee’s attention. She soon came from the far side to the baseline and around toward the Morton bench. There she called a technical foul on Becker.
What had he said to earn the T? “I guess I said enough,” Becker said. Most likey he reminded the referee that officials had been reminded this season that a foul in the first minute of a game is a foul in the last minute of a game. I bet she didn’t like being reminded. “And you gotta protect the kids,” he said, suggesting a cross-body block at speed can be dangerous.
Anyway, I saw all that.
I had more fun hearing stuff.
From the fourth row in the bleachers, can you hear the shoes squeaking against the basketball court?
Did you know the ball makes a duller sound when bounced on some spots?
You’ve heard broadcasters say a shooter “rattled” that one in, but have you ever heard the actual rattle of a rim?
It was one thing in years past when Becker wore dress shoes and HAMMERED his hard leather soles against the floor. But tonight, from the fourth row, even as the coach simply walked to and fro, I heard Becker’s sneakered feet slapping the hardwood.
We’ve all seen players go down hard, sometimes so hard it takes your breath away and you wonder not when but if they’re going to get up – but, good grief, when Lamprecht went down tonight, I swear I heard bones cracking.
My hearing went south somewhere during the Pleistocene Age. I was at a basketball game with a crowd so loud my ears began ringing and never quit. People tired of my saying, “Huh?” suggested hearing aids. I quoted my dear mother who at age 95 denied a hearing problem. She called it a speaking problem. “If people would just SPEAK UP,” she said, “I hear fine.”
I got hearing aids at 1 o’clock today. At 8:24 tonight, I heard Bob Becker say, “Tatym got HAMMERED.” I would have heard him without ‘em.
Morton is now 9-3 for the season. The Potters play at Peoria Manual Thursday, unless the blizzard blows us all away. East Peoria is 0-11.
Morton’s scoring: Lamprecht 15, Engel 12, Ellie VanMeenen 11, Izzy Hutchinson 9, Vandel 8, Ruby Brubaker 4, Anja Ruxlow 3, Julia Laufenberg 3, Magda Lopko 2.