Lady Potters 58

Limestone 30

Three minutes in, Tatym Lamprecht did the Steph Curry thing. She curled around a screen on the right side and went to the deep corner. The ball came to her there, and she did what shooters do. She put up a pretty rainbow of a 3 that whispered through the net. “I like shooting,” she would say later. “Eighty percent, I shoot 80 percent.”

With a minute left in the first quarter, Lamprecht did it again, this time from a step and a half behind the arc, at 1 o’clock on the dial.

The night before, against Pekin, the 5-foot-7 senior had not even shot a 3. She had played only seven minutes, five of those in the first quarter. The Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, did not like what he saw in his starters that night. He saw no energy, no enthusiasm. Blah, he said. So he did what coaches sometimes do. He told his starters, Lamprecht among them, to sit their sorry butts on the bench.

But tonight, running at full roar, the Potters dominated Limestone in every way, beginning with Lamprecht’s pair of 3’s and continuing with a 15-2 run in the second quarter for a 26-10 halftime lead that declared the issue settled.

Wait.

The shooter who likes to shoot said she figures she shoots 80 percent?

“Uh,” I said, “that’s four out of five.”

“Of course,” Lamprecht said.

If she says so, and if she’s throwing in four 3’s tonight – well, tonight she didn’t miss one, which made her 4-for-4, which is 100 percent – who’s gonna doubt her?

The next-best good news for the Potters was that second-quarter run created on a bit of everything. Addy Engel, who dominated inside all night long, began it with a drive across the paint for two. Then Ellie VanMeenen’s nifty pass set up Engel again. VanMeenen followed with a muscled-up put-back, a driving layup, and a 3 of her own. Engel closed the quarter with a pair of free throws and another signature creation at the rim. (Addy and Ellie, you might notice, did all the Potters’ scoring that quarter.)

How to explain the overnight transformation from a blah team that struggled against Pekin and yet won going away tonight against a team it beat by only 10 a month ago, 65-55 at Limestone?

Engel: “We were more mentally focused, especially on defense. We didn’t say it oud loud, but I feel like subconsciously we went out last night just expecting to win. But tonight we had the mentality that we wanted to go out and dominate.”

Perhaps there is an explanation in Becker’s whiteboard. He usually scribbles defensive assignments there. Tonight it carried only a selection of CoachSpeak orders, encouragements, and maxims designed to get his people amped up enough to keep their butts in the game, Such as . . . .

COMPETE … HUSTLE … SCRAPPY … TOUGHNESS … PHYSICAL … DEFEND TOGETHER … GUARD HARD … RELENTLESS …

No blahs tonight. “Tonight was a great response from our kids,” Becker said. “They were determined, they were assertive, they played great defense. They had energy and intensity. They were hustling. We’re heading the right direction now.”

Now on a six-game winning streak, Morton is 16-9, 7-4 in the Mid-Illini Conference. Limestone is 8-15, 2-9.

Next up, East Peoria at the Potterdome Tuesday night.

Morton’s scoring tonight: Lamprecht 16, Engel 12, VanMeenen 10, Emilia Miller 6, Graci Junis 5, Izzy Hutchinson 4, Abbey Pollard 3, Julia Laufenberg 1, Kerrigan Vandel 1