What these Potters did this season was everything you’d want. Sometimes, they played wonderfully. Sometimes, not so much. Every game, they did what they did in this one. They made us happy to be in their world.

Losing hurts. Always has, always will. Thirty seconds and it would be over, losing to Lincoln in the East Peoria Clsss 3A sectional championship game. Izzy Hutchinson, a senior, exhausted, came to the bench, her four years done. Her eyes glistened with tears.

Then Addy Engel, a senior, exhausted, walked to the bench, her head down, maybe hearing the applause meant for her, maybe not, and she took a seat. She put her hands together, knitting her fingers together, not knowing what else to do with her hands until, her four years done, she pulled her jersey up to her eyes and pressed it there.

“Our ultimate goal,” Hutchinson said, “was to get to Redbird,” meaning a trip to the Final Four with a chance at a state championship. “I just loved this team.”

Engel was her team’s only scoring threat tonight. With three 3’s and four of the hardest-earned layups you’ll ever see, somehow finding space against Lincoln’s physical interior, Engel scored 19. She finished 12 points short of 1,000 for her career.

“We fought the whole game,” she said, “and we left it all out there. There’s no shame in losing to Lincoln. They’re a great team. I’m just so proud of our team, what we’ve accomplished this whole season.”

A year ago, the Potters were embarrassed in their regional opener, beaten by 30 points. Tonight they proved they had come a great distance. They were one of only 16 teams still playing in 3A. They were two victories away from Morton’s ninth trip to Redbird in 15 seasons.

“Dating back to that blowout loss,” their coach, Bob Becker said, “these kids got everything and more out of themselves.”

That said, even more of Everything and More might not have been enough tonight against an undefeated Lincoln team that has won 72 of its last 73 games. It is 35-0 this season. Its players wear warmup jerseys announcing the team’s bold ambition: #ONEGOAL. The goal is the state championship that they were denied in the title game last March.

They won tonight’s game with all-state guard Kloe Froebe scoring 20 and with outstanding defense, first disrupting Morton with its full-court press and falling back into a 1-2-2 trapping zone that kept the Potters out of the paint where they have so often scored this season. The victory was made evident early.

Morton trailed only 12-10 after six minutes. But in the next 10 minutes to halftime, Lincoln went on one of its customary killing runs, 18-4, allowing Morton one field goal in the second quarter.

The Potters finished 26-6 for the season. They won the Mid-Illini Conference championship. After a 4-3 start with losses to the region’s best teams – Peoria, Peoria Notre Dame, and Lincoln – they won 22 of their next 24 games.

This is how that’s done. . . . Summer time in the gym, Engel and Ellie VanMeenen shooting. “Twenty thousand makes,” Engel said. Not 20,000 shots, 20k makes. “And several others doing 10,000.” . . . In the summer, Hutchinson becoming a true point guard, still at full speed but learning to be quick without hurrying. . . . “and commitment to not have that (30-point loss) feeling again,” Becker said, instead committing to “be the best they could be.”

That, they did.

Morton’s scoring tonight: Engel 19, Abby VanMeenen 4, Payton Hays 3, Paige Selke 2, Ellie VanMeenen 2.