Little Kylie Moeller knew what she was getting into. She is East Peoria’s best player, a junior, a 5-foot-4 dynamo, athletic, quick with the ball, a shooter from everywhere. Those strengths guaranteed her a long night of frustration.

“The way they played me last time,” she said, an allusion to Morton’s defense of a month ago, “I assumed it would be like that this time.”

A gaggle of East Peoria students came ready for a celebration. Kylie needed six points to get to 1,000 for her career. The students came with golden balloons. Someone brought a bouquet of flowers. There was a souvenir basketball painted up with the numbers 1,000.

And then it didn’t happen – almost – we’ll get back to that after some explaining. At a shoot-around this afternoon, Morton’s coach, Bob Becker, ran his team through a gimmick defense, a triangle and two, meaning three defenders parked in the paint and the other two chased the ball, never as purposefully as when it was in Kylie Moeller’s hands.

It’s too much to say the Potters gave Kylie no room to breathe. It’s okay, though, to say that every breath she took, a Potter shared the air.

“We had great respect for her game,” Becker said. “We weren’t going to let her beat us.”

Not much chance of that. Morton won the previous game by 22. This one was decided quickly. The Potters scored the game’s first 15 points in 5 ½ minutes. The lead was 34-17 at the half, 52-20 after three quarters. It was an impressive performance, the Potters scoring any way and anytime they thought about it.

Katie Brock, Ellie VanMeenen, Addy Engel, and Paige Selke made 3-pointers. The big freshmen Abby VanMeenen and Selke combined for 21 points, mostly working inside with either hand.

Yes, the Potters came in as the state’s #2 ranked team in Class 3A. Winners of six straight and 17 of their last 19, the Potters are now 21-5 overall, 11-1 in the Mid-Illini Conference. East Peoria is 7-21, 0-12.

Absolutely, a romp was in the cards. Still, with the regionals beginning in a week or so, when anything less than a team’s best is problematic, a romp on the loser’s home floor is a good thing.

So the Potters followed that early 15-0 run with a 16-0 run in the third quarter. Anyone imagining Morton’s future in the state tournaments would do well to remember four moments in those runs.

*Working from the edge of the triangle, Engel intercepted a lazy pass for a breakaway layup and a 9-0 lead.

*Brock, left unguarded, did the very good thing of a 3-pointer from the deep left corner, 15-0.

*When Selke’s 3-pointer from the left side was long, Abby V simply caught it – Nice pass! – and put it off the glass, 43-20.

*Twenty seconds later, Izzy Hutchinson, driving into the paint, did what good passers do, she gave the ball to Abby V in a place where all she had to do was go up with it, 45-20.

Now, back to little Kylie Moeller. She did not score in the first three quarters. (“I was challenged with guarding her,” Hutchinson said, happy to have met the challenge.)

Then, with 4:39 showing on the running clock in the fourth quarter, Moeller made a 3-pointer. She needed three more. Later, fouled on a 3-point try with time running away, she might not get to shoot all three free throws.

She missed the first, made the second, and missed the third, only to grab the rebound herself (!) and score the bucket necessary for a thousand.

Might she have missed the last throw intentionally to get one more shot?

“I did not,” she said. But she knew it was off. “And I went right after it.”

Her coach stood by with the bouquet of flowers. Kylie Moeller left the court smiling.

Selke led Morton’s scoring with 13. Engel had 12, Ellie V 9, Abby V 8, Brock 6, Anja Ruxlow 2, Julia Laufenberg 2, Magda Lopko 1.

P.S. Speaking of celebrations, one is due soon. In Becker's 25th season as the Potters' head coach, his teams now have won 599 games. They have lost 175. That's a winning percentage of 77.3%. I can't put my socks on right that often.