Oh my, the things a sportswriter remembers. Raise your hand if you ever played a pinball machine.

Pinball machines were the 20th century’s version of video games. They were audio-visual amusements with flashing lights, sound effects, mechanical flippers you activated to bat around a silver ball that racked up points by bouncing off rubber bumpers.

Then, when the silver ball escaped your control and rolled into a hole at the bottom of the board, you went, Dang, I had it going good.

In my grandmother’s tavern, I said those words a thousand times. Little David was a pinball wizard long before Elton John put on his Pinball Wizard boots. (Kids, ask a senior citizen.) Family historians insist that little David, 8 years old, fell off a machine one night and landed on his head, which, they say, explains everything.

Anyway, early in the second quarter, tonight, I thought of Grandma Lena’s pinball machines. Here’s the note: “4 Potters on floor, batted around a loose ball, got it, missed 3 shots, got reb’s, ‘PINBALL!’”

Nobody could control the bouncing, bouncing, bouncing ball. The Potters committed five turnovers in the first four minutes. They were on the way to yet another night of 20-something lame passes, predictable passes, and fumbled passes, not to mention a flagrant foul and a 5-second call for failing to make an in-bounds pass.

The Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, first stipulated that a win is a win is a W, and any W is better than an L. So there is that to say about this one. Still, after a long post-game talk with his team, he said, “We’re a talented team, and I’m trying to be calm about this. We had a poor game and we won by 15. But we gotta get better. We’ve got the regional coming up and that’s not going to cut it come regionals. Then it’s one-and-done.”

What will cut it is the Potters’ work midway in the game. Late in the second quarter into the early minutes of the third, they went on a 14-0 run. A 23-17 lead became 37-17. Izzy Hutchison started it with a free throw. Then came two more by Paige Selke, an Emilia Miller 3-pointer, Abby VanMeenen's layup off a Hutchinson fast-break pass, Addy Engel's mid-range jumper, Selke's layup off a beautiful spin move in the paint, and another VanMeenen bucket inside.

Those of us who grow irritable in the presence of Turnovers by Our Favorite Team were excited by the possibility of the Potters, finally up by 20, going on to crush Limestone into a powdery dust.

Instead, that lead was soon down to 11, whittled away by turnovers and failures to convert on layups and put-backs. After Limestone outscored Morton in the fourth quarter, 20-17, Becker said, “We have to find a way to extend the lead instead of it going the other way.”

Engel, a senior captain and the team’s leading scorer, said, “We have to play to win rather than playing not to lose.”

Morton is now 20-5 for the season, 10-1 in the Mid-Illini Conference. Winners of five straight, the Potters next play Tuesday at East Peoria. Limestone is 10-15, 4-7.

Engel led Morton’s scoring with 21. Selke had 12, Hutchinson 9, VanMeenen 8, Magda Lopko 4, Miller 3.