Normal Community 40

Lady Potters 35

By noon tomorrow, they’ll have forgotten this one. Maybe. Hope so. Kind souls might even call this one a moral victory. The Potters, a Class 3A team with a 10-3 record, went to the wire against an undefeated team, 13-0, ranked in the top 5 of the state’s Class 4A. That team, Normal Community, “probably expected to slap us around,” the Morton coach, Bob Becker, said. “But our kids didn’t let that happen.”

NCHS led, 37-30, a minute into the fourth quarter of a State Farm Holiday Classic second-round game. For the next 5 ½ minutes, Morton stayed alive. First, Tatym Lamprecht somehow worked a prayer of a running 6-footer into the net. She followed with another slash to the rim before Izzy Hutchinson’s free throw brought the Potters within two, 37-35, with 2:28 to play.

Alas, from there on, the Potters did nothing good. They did not get another shot. For a full precious minute, they could not solve Normal Community’s keep-away offense. When they made a steal with 1:00 left, they missed both ends of a two-shot free throw possibility. Then they did not commit desperation fouls that might give them the ball should NCHS miss its free throws – until there were 4.2 seconds to play, and Normal made both free throws.

Here’s the good news. Morton won the first quarter, 12-11. As bizarre as it sounds, it is nevertheless true that Morton won second half, 12-10. (Yes, really. Morton won the third quarter, 7-5. Each team got 5 points in the fourth.) Normal Community’s 19-11 second quarter was the difference, a difference built on superior play at both ends, particularly on offense where the winners created a dozen in-the-paint scoring chances to Morton’s two or three.

If you liked hacking, clawing defense, you liked this game.

If you liked all-out effort from the get-go, you liked this game.
However.

If you like, oh, even a touch of smooth-flowing offensives, if you like at least a hint of in-rhythm outside shooting, if you came to this game hoping to appreciate careful ball-handling, you did not much like this game. For instance, Normal Community scored as many as seven straight points once all night; Morton scored six straight only twice. And none of that happened in the last half when good defenses met mediocre offenses and produced 16 minutes of when-will-somebody-make-something-happen.

At 12:30 Thursday afternoon, Morton plays Rochester in a winner’s consolation bracket game.

Morton’s scoring tonight: Lamprecht 11, Ellie VanMeenen 6, Julia Laufenberg 6, Addy Engel 6, Izzy Hutchinson 4, Ruby Brubaker 2.