Morton’s Lady Potters 67, poor poor East Peoria 13

So I whip out two one-dollar bills. The nice lady at the East Peoria High School ticket counter says no, no, here’s a senior card, it gets you in all Mid-Illini Conference games, free. I read the back of the card: “Cardholder must be at least age 60 and may be asked to show proof of age.” My question is: why didn’t the nice lady ask for PROOF OF AGE? A glance is all it took? Did the glare off my head give me away? Maybe the mustache, which is, I admit, in a certain light, white-ish.

After that excitement, things got dull. In the second and fourth quarters, Morton outscored East Peoria, 40-0. Over the last three quarters, it was 55-6. In three blilzkrieg bursts that lasted 2 minutes and 13 seconds of the middle quarters – steals, forced turnovers, fast breaks, 3-point shots – Morton left EP for dead, 21-0. At that rate, Morton wins, 302-0. I’d pay $2 to see that game.

Instead of his usual starters, Morton coach Bob Becker started five seniors, only one a regular. Four minutes into the game, he subbed out the seniors with five juniors. He substituted five people at a time five times. It was 12 minutes into the game before he had his regular five in. Later, he had my favorite unit together, featuring three left-handers. I was hoping that with the running clock in the fourth quarter, Becker would look into the bleachers and send in EVERYBODY WITH WHITE MUSTACHES WHO GOT IN FREE!!!

As to why Becker did the unusual rotations, he said, “There was an opportunity to do so.” Meaning, y’know, it was East Peoria, poor poor East Peoria, winless in the Mid-Illini Conference this season– always poor except for that night in January of 2016. One does not need be a senior citizen cardholder to remember that night. Inexplicably, astonishingly, unbelievably, and all other adverbs suggesting we didn’t see what we saw, East Peoria played Jedi mind tricks on the Potters and won, 37-35. (And this happened in a season when Morton went on to win its second of three straight state championships.)

Since that gawdawful night, Morton has beaten East Peoria five straight times – 90-33, 80-33, 84-11, 74-21, 67-13. The average score is 79-20. None of those games was anywhere near that close.

Two notes, one on fashion: I liked the Potters’ gray road jerseys, saved from the 2014-15 season when the team won its first state championship. “Undefeated in those jerseys,” Bob Becker said. OK with the jerseys, but what’s with the belts-turned-down look on the shorts? “The jerseys didn’t all fit the same,” Courtney Jones said by way of kinda sorta not quite explaining why players turned their belts inside out and created a raggedy white-belt look on the gray uniforms. Inelegant.

A second note, on the best bang-bang play tonight. It came off Courtney Jones’s foot. East Peoria thought to in-bound at mid-court. On a bounce pass, Jones said, “I just stuck my foot out there. I was so surprised.” She kicked the ball on a line ker-POW! – and the ball flew into the second row of bleachers where it ricocheted off 11-year-old Will Bimrose — ker-POW!!!

Jones said, “I went, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and my eyes opened real wide,” because she seemed to have kicked the ball into young Will’s nose.

“My leg,” young Will reported later, happy that the Jones missile had missed his left arm, broken in soccer last week. At game’s end, Jones sought out Will to apologize. He told her he was OK.

Morton is now 16-2 for the season and 6-0 in the Mid-Illini. Tenley Dowell led the Potters scoring tonight with 15. Maddy Becker had 12, Katie Krupa 8, Raquel Frakes 6, Bridget Wood 5, Lindsey Dullard 4, five players had 3 each (Makenna Baughman, Peyton Dearing, Kathryn Reiman, Megan Gold, Jones), and Addie Cox had 2.