Author: Dave Kindred

Morton’s Lady Potters 59, Metamora (again) 33

Not to say Bob Becker was all fired up early, but we’re five seconds into the Potters’ first possession when the coach is off the bench with something to say to his team.

“Give it to her,” is what he says.

Only louder.

“Give it to HER,” is what he says, and we’re 10 seconds into the possession against a team that Morton has beaten twice this season by an average of 30 points. Metamora had scored first, a free throw. Still, nothing to worry about here.

But it’s win-or-go-home time now. It’s the Potters’ last game of the season in the Potterdome and there’s a big, loud crowd. It’s for a regional championship that would be the Potters’ fifth in a row and ninth in 10 seasons. It’s the second game of what would be a seven-game run to the Potters’ fourth state championship in five years.

So we’re 15 seconds in, Metamora has a 1-0 lead, and Becker wants someone, anyone, to pretty please make an entry pass to his post player, the freshman Katie Krupa.

“GIVE IT TO HER!” the coach says, disdaining decorum in favor of going all-caps.

Which is pretty much how Krupa came to score Morton’s first bucket, a power-move layup with her left hand, and the Potters did to Metamora what they’ve been doing to most everyone lately. They ran them over and then they backed over them in order to run them over again to make sure they’ve been run over but good. By quarter’s end, it was 16-6, halftime 32-13, and five minutes into the third, 40-13.

Only once in that time did Becker have reason to leap from the bench and stomp-romp-rip off his suit jacket and fling it to the floor, a dance step which, if God is good, someone caught on video and will play alongside the country music lyric that goes, “She took my heart out and stomped that sucker flat.” As to what caused this performance of the Becker Boogaloo, methinks he thought unkindly of a referee. I’m not sure. And I really don’t care. The greater point of all this is that these Potters, players and coaches, are kicking butts and taking names.

Metamora is a decent team. Thee Redbirds came in with a 21-6 record. It has size, skill, experience. It plays physically, willing and eager to bump bodies from end to end. Two weeks ago, they trailed Morton by only three points early n the second half of that 32-point loss. So they can play some – not that you’d have known it tonight, for tonight the Potters’ showed us they could beat the Redbirds any way they chose to be beaten – by transition basketball at its runningest-best, by defenses so good that it seemed unfair that the Potters would throw in a triangle-and-two just to confuse everyone. More important than fast breaks or trapping defenses, the Potters showed us something that will be an absolute necessity very, very soon.

They showed toughness. Call it grit. Call it no-back-down. I know, I know, they’re your cute sisters, your sweet daughters, your loving grand-daughters. I’m here to tell you they’re sweetie-pie killers. I once wrote about a teenage tennis phenom named Tracy Austin. I called her a “killer in pigtails.” Her mother complained. “Those aren’t pigtails, they’re bunches,” she said. She liked the killer part. I love these Potters, each of them sweet except for those moments when you have the basketball and they want it, Then they remember what Bob Becker wrote on his whiteboard and showed them in the locker room before the game.

“RELENTLESS REBOUNDING”
“OWN THE PAINT”
“BELIEVE”
“COMPETE”

Which leads to runs such as the Potters’ 16-0 move late in the first half and early in the second. They were up comfortably, 24-13. Seven minutes and 35 seconds later, it 40-13. Lindsey Dullard started it with back-to-back 3’s and a layup. Tenley Dowell came with a 3, Krupa with a 15-footer – and here came Becker again, “KATIE, GET THAT!,” meaning intercept a pass, her deflection being just as good – followed by two Dowell free throws and one by Peyton Dearing.

On Valentine’s Day, no less, they’dThey’d taken the Redbird’s heart and stomped that asucker flat.

I believe I saw the 2019 Class 3A state basketball champions tonight. The Potters were that good. Again. Not only good, but resilient. Not only resilient, but resourceful. Not only resourceful, but relentless. If I could think up another ‘r’ word, I would. Actually, I do know another ‘r’ word. Richwoods.

Next week, most likely, the Potters will play Peoria Richwoods, the defending state champions. They’ve played the scratching/clawing/powerful Peorians twice this season, losing the first time in double overtime, winning the second by a point. They could play for the Chillicothe sectional championship. As was true a year ago, it’s true again. The winner of that game should win the state championship.

If a Richwoods game comes, the Potters are ready.

“We played with a lot of energy and intensity tonight,” Dowell said.

“I knew I had to attack the basket,” Lindsey Dullard said.

“We played like it was the last one we’d play,” Courtney Jones said.

“This team truly has an ‘it’ factor,” Bob Becker said. “Whether that means we win a state championship, I don’t know. But we’re playing a very high level and very consistently at the right time.”

Dullard led Morton’s scoring with 17. Krupa had 15, Dowell 14. Maddy Becker had 3, Jones 3, Megan Gold 2, Bridget Wood 2, Raquel Frakes 2, Dearing 1.

Morton’s Lady Potters 82, LaSalle-Peru 22

Peyton Dearing was called for carrying the ball. The Potters junior guard had made a steal and took off flying the other way. That’s who she is and what she does. She’s a little thief who can fly. On this breakaway, her second dribble was high. Not a carry. But a zebra blew his whistle. Dearing’s coach, Bob Becker, went, “Huh?” The zebra grunted, “Carry.”

Wrong. Not that it mattered. The Potters were on a 28-0 run en route to a 56-4 halftime lead. Still, the call wrong. Here’s what Peyton Dearing, the first guard off the Morton bench, said she thought of that moment.

“Gotta go do it again,” she said.

Which she did. Next time down, LaSalle-Peru made the mistake of throwing a pass anywhere near Dearing. She intercepted it and took off flying again. This time no whistle, probably because she was out of sight before the zebra could see what happened. At that point, in only nine minutes of play, Dearing had scored 11 of her game-high 14 points.

“She’s playing with urgency,” Becker said, and the coach loves players who bring all his favorite things – urgency, confidence, a high level of excellence – to every possession all night. Now 27-3 and playing tonight at the Potterdome for their fifth straight regional championship and ninth in 10 years, the Potters were so good tonight that the proper response to their performance was to laugh . . . yes, laugh . . .at how easy they made it look.

They led, 20-0, in fewer than five minutes. My favorite two points in that run came from the freshman post, Katie Krupa, who missed everything on a power move from the right side and caught the misfired shot on the left side and scored from there. Becker said with a smile, “We tell ‘em it’s OK to miss. But go get it and put it back in.”

On 11 of LaSalle-Peru’s possessions in those first five minutes, here’s what they did against Morton’s full-court press and trapping defense. They did nothing, as in zero, zilch, and blank-o. Six times, the Potters stole the ball. Four times, they forced passes out of bounds. Once, LaSalle-Peru threw up an air ball, just to see if, maybe, perhaps, they’d get lucky. They didn’t. Insult to Injury Dept.: at the first-quarter buzzer, Courtney Jones made a 3-pointer from the deep left corner to put the Potters up, 31-3.

Then Morton scored the next 23 points.

“I like where we’re at,” Becker said. “One through 14, we’re playing with grerat energy, efficiency, and confidence. We’re playing at a high level every night. I hope we can keep it going for a while.”

Afterwards, the loser’s coach, Hollis Vickery, said CoachSpeak things. Morton is a “very well oiled” team. “You can tell they’ve played with each other a long time, and you can’t teach basketball experience.” “They intimidated us at times.” “They play with such precision.” “Defense is more an illusion than a reality. But their illusion may be better than reality.”

LaSalle-Peru’s little senior guard, Aubrie Roda, said it simply. Two years ago, her team lost to Galesburg in a regional championship game. She thought Galesburg was the best team she ever played. She has changed her mind. She said, “Morton’s 100 times better than Galesburg was.”

I told Vickery, “Morton thinks they can win a state championship.”

Vickery said, “They should think that.”

Peyton Dearing said, “We’re coming together really, really well,” and Becker said, “Our only goal right now is to be 1-0 after tomorrow night’s game. As cliché as that is, that’s how we’re thinking.”

Dearing led Morton with 14 points and four other Potters were in double figures: Lindsey Dullard 13, Tenley Dowell 13, Kathryn Reiman 12 (on four of the team’s 10 3’s), Krupa 10. Raquel Frakes had 5, Olivia Remmert 4, Megan Gold 4, Jones 3, Addi Cox 2, Makenna Baughman 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 60, Dunlap 42

Every year on Senior Night, the Morton coach, Bob Becker, introduces the team’s seniors and their parents. As they walk to midcourt, Becker lists their accomplishments, ambitions, and activities, such as “participates in cadaver lab” and “enjoys reading, baking, art, and general witchcraft.” My favorite part, because I am in need.of wisdom, are the “words of wisdom” he reports from each player, such as . . .

Addi Cox: “Mistakes can be learning opportunities, but try not to make your whole life a lesson.”

Claire Kraft: “Your attitude is always a choice. Laugh a lot and have fun.”

Bridget Wood: “You don’t always need a plan for everything. Sometimes you just need to trust and let go and see what happens.”

Megan Gold: “Be consistently excellent and do it with a smile.”

Kathryn Reiman: “Always be willing to challenge yourself.”

Tenley Dowell: “Self-confidence is the fist step toward success. If you believe it, you can achieve it.”

I kept it shorter. I asked the six old folks for one word that would define their four years in the Potters’ program. Gold: “Fast.” Reiman: “Family.” Kraft: “Exciting.” Wood: “Growth.” Dowell: “Competitive.” Cox: “Inspiring.”

I can tell you what all that wisdom produces. In the last four years, the Potters have won two state championships. In that time their record is 124-10. And they’re not done yet. They are hosts to a regional tournament and begin play next Tuesday.

Oh, the game.

Yes, there was a game.

Not much of one.

Perhaps because of all the festivities – grand introductions of the seniors – the pep band at its best, cheerleaders and dance squad and co-ed dance squad doing their best stuff – maybe the biggest crowd of the season, both sides of the Potterdome full — Becker giving four seniors a rare start – maybe all that hullabaloo messed with the Potters vibe. Two nights ago at Canton, they’d played near-perfect basketball. Tonight, meh.

Not that it mattered. Morton wouldn’t lose to Dunlap once if they played every other day for the next six months. But somehow the Potters led only 27-24 early in the third quarter. Dunlap had scored the quarter’s first six points. Not that he was worried, but a coach whose team is ranked No. 3 in Class 3A – a coach with designs on his fourth state championship in five years – doesn’t much like it when he’s three points up on a team with a 13-10 record. So Becker called a timeout and said something magical.

Soon enough, Morton’s three-point lead had become a 26-point lead, 57-31.

I asked him later, “What did you say that was so magical?”

“I don’t have any magical words,” he said. “We started trapping them, getting them out of their comfort zone, which is what we had hoped to do all night. And we made some shots that we hadn’t made earlier. Shooting covers up for a world of sins.”

So, of the game’s 32 minutes, Morton played well about a third of the time. After the timeout, the Potters went on a 30-7 run that lasted 10 minutes and 51 seconds. In that game-turning move, Dowell had 12 of her game-high 22 points.

My favorite part of the night – aside from learning that Megan Gold plays the piano, skis, swims and has held a human brain – came when a referee stopped play. He pointed into the Dunlap section of the bleachers. A woman there apparently had some something magical. It caused her to disappear.

She hadn’t liked a foul called on Dunlap. The player in question had committed, according to my eyesight, approximately seven-11 fouls and had been whistled for only three. But the woman in the stands raised so much ruckus about this particular call that a referee asked Potterdome security to escort her out of the gym.

Told to leave, here’s what she did. First, she stood at her seat in the fifth row of the bleachers. Then she pulled, tugged, and worked her way into a stylish puffy jacket. It’s cold outside. This took some time. The jacket was big and puffy and she was in no hurry. Looked like a nice Dunlap Eagles shirt she had on. Lots of gold trim on her. Picked up her purse. Slung it over her shoulder. Last thing she did, when she got to the first row of the bleachers, she threw a scarf. Seemed to be an aimless throw. Just tossed it. Maybe it wasn’t hers. Maybe she’d found it somewhere.

The Potters finished the regular season with a 26-3 record. They were 14-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference, winning their fifth straight championship (third in a row undefeated) and extending their league winning streak to 47 games. Dunlap is 13-11 and 7-7.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 22. Dullard had 9, Becker 8, Gold 5, Katie Krupa 5, Peyton Dearing 5, Courtney Jones 2, Reiman 2, Wood 1, Raquel Frakes 1.

Morton’s Lady Potters 81, Canton 39

Eleven days in the planning, it happened tonight. What the girls dreamed up at Cracker Barrel, they made real tonight. It began in the Cracker Barrel gift shop on January 26 after the Potters’ Pink Night game. It began when Courtney Jones and Katie Krupa saw this thing. It didn’t cost much, maybe $2. They had to have it because they knew what they would do with it. They had a plan.

Eleven days, they waited.

Do you know how long 11 days is in the life of teenage girls with a plan? It’s 10 days longer than forever.

But they waited because they wanted to pull it off perfectly. They wanted the maximum reaction from the man who was the target of the plan.

Eleven days.

It happened tonight.

And I will tell you about it right after I tell you about the basketball game in which the Potters led after a quarter, 34-10, led at the half, 58-22, and caused their coach, Bob Becker, to say when it was all done, “That was so fun.”

They made their first 10 shots of the game, five of them 3-pointers by four different shooters. In three minutes and four seconds, it was 15-0. At that rate, Morton wins 156-0. They did it with a full-court press that bedeviled, bewildered, and baffled Canton’s ball-handlers. They did it with a whirlwind of a transition game that transformed every steal and turnover into a bucket. Against the second-best team in their conference, the Potters played with cool precision at both ends. Think of the Golden State Warriors, only with ponytails.

I will wait while you read that paragraph again.

Early in the going, Becker heard a Canton fan shout out from the other side of the grand old Alice Ingersoll Gymnasium.

“Take the press off, you jerk,” the fan said.

What? Canton is pretty good. And a fan is whining? The philosopher didn’t know that Morton’s good players play hard because that’s what good players do all the time or they wouldn’t be good players. The Potters are now 25-3 for the season, already the Mid-Illini Conference champs at 13-0 and on a 46-game winning streak in the league. Perhaps the whining fan would have liked new rules for the Potters. Like, they must wear combat boots and boxing gloves. Y’know, to make it fair. Also, blindfolds.

So, back to the plan 11 days in the realization . . . . .

It took 11 days because a whoopee cushion ambush requires planning.

Especially when the target is your coach.

But once Courtney Jones felt the first stirrings of glorious mischief, there was no turning back. As she put it, “Oh my goodness, we have to do this!”

But one game passed. Another passed. A third. After Canton, there was only Senior Night this Friday at the Potterdome. It wouldn’t be appropriate on Senior Night to prank the coach with a – what to call it? – with a – let’s call it a device – that Wikipedia says is also known as a “windy blaster and Razzberry Cushion.”

It had to be tonight.

Before the jayvee game, with the varsity players in their warmups in the bleachers, the mischief began when they saw Bob Becker sitting on the bench.

He had to get off his rear end for this to happen. He had to leave his chair unguarded.

“So we asked Coach if he could dance, could he show us some dance steps,” Jones said. “He got out on the court and did, like, some country dance thing. And when he came back to sit down, I hurried and sneaked the cushion under him.”

There is video of this moment in Lady Potters’ history.

It shows Becker lowering himself onto the bench.

Then it shows Becker leaping off the bench and looking behind him to see what just happened.

“It was really loud,” Jones said. “Like, ‘pfflurt,’ or, you know.”

Laughter ensued and then it ensued some more and I heard it from the other side of the building and I thought someone had just done the funniest thing that had ever been done, which, as it turned out, was just about right. A basketball coach in his 20th season sits on a whoopee cushion and joins his players in waves of laughter that tell you everything you need to know about that team’s character and personality.

“You, Courtney Jones, I’m going to get you,” Becker said, and Jones hurried out of the gym, headed for the team bus, laughing in the rain.

Tenley Dowell, who had 20 points in the first half tonight, led Morton’s scoring with 25. Lindsey Dullard had 13, Maddy Becker 11, Krupa 8, Jones 5, Makenna Baughman 5, Megan Gold 4, Kathryn Reiman 3, Bridget Wood 3, Raquel Frakes 2, Peyton Dearing 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 80, Limestone 33

Quietly, almost without notice, the Potters tonight clinched their fifth straight Mid-Illini Conference championship. Their 45th consecutive victory in conference play gave them a 12-0 league record this season with two games to play. Everyone else has lost at least three. That said, I am here to celebrate loudly what we saw tonight, another tour de force performance by a rising star, Lindsey Dullard.

Certainly, she is not new news. The 6-foot-1 junior has been a starter for three seasons. Absolutely, by any measure, she has been a good and valuable player. With her in the lineup as a freshman, the Potters won a state championship. But what we’re seeing now, over the last month, is Lindsey Dullard growing into her game.

She has always been enough of a shooter, ball-handler, rebounder, and defender to win games by being good at one or two of those things on a given night. But in the last month, she has been good at every one of those things every night. Let’s make up a statistic. Let’s allot 25 percent to each of those four categories. Good at one thing a night, give her 25 percent. Two, 50 percent. Right now, for a month, she’s at 100 percent every night.

Not that Limestone was much competition. The Mid-Illini is down while Morton is up, now l24-3 for the season and ranked No. 3 in Class 3A. But at the end of one three-minute stretch in the first half tonight, I made a note, in my semi-cryptic code, that read: “Dull do all, defl, blox, steal, asst, reb, 3.” Translation: Lindsey Dullard did it all, a deflection on the press, a blocked shot under the hoop, an open-court steal, a fast-break assist, a rebound, and a 3-pointer from the right-side arc.

I made those notes after a possession that went this way: moving into a passing lane at the top of the Limestone key, Dullard plucked a pass out of the air. Three dribbles at full speed and she lobbed a pass ahead to Olivia Remmert. Remmert missed the layup. And who gets the rebound? The one who stole the ball in the first place, made the pass, and caught up to the break before anyone else got there: Dullard, who then moved the ball to Maddy Becker at the top of the key for a 3-pointer. One possession: a steal, a rebound, two perfect passes, one assist.

“The last six, seven games, Lindsey’s been just fantastic,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said. “Tonight she filled up the stats sheet. Everything she’s doing makes everybody better. And if you’re seeing only what she does with the ball, you’re missing what she does off the ball. She’s an All-Stater, a no-doubter.”

Asked to explain what’s happening lately, Dullard said, “I’m really confident right now. My focus has really been on defense because defense turns into my offense. On defense I like to anticipate where the ball is going and . . . ”

I finished the sentence. “And steal it?”

“I find that very enjoyable,” she said.

She scored only seven points tonight, another reminder that scoring, while necessary, is not as important as being the most effective player on the court, which Dullard was tonight and has been for some time now.

She was so good early, by the way, that the Potters built a 51-12 halftime lead and gave your reporter a chance to do research on a question he has long pondered. Why is a school in Bartonville named Limestone High School?

“Must be a limestone quarry around here,” one Potter fan said.

“We’re in Limestone Township,” another said.

“But why,” I asked, “is it Limestone Township?”

So I went to Wikipedia, typed in Limestone High School, which led me to Bartonville, which led me to “The Haunted Infirmary,” which led me to the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane, which led me to a photograph of the asylum’s hospital sometime between its opening in 1902 and its demolition a couple years ago, and I swear that huge, beautiful, scary-as-hell building looked like it was made out of . . . yes . . . limestone.

“Had to be a quarry nearby,” the first Potter fan said, and she was very proud of what she said next. “We’re getting to the bottom of it.”

Tenley Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 16. Maddy
Becker had 13 (with four 3’s). All 13 Potters who played scored: Courtney Jones 8, Dullard 7, Katie Krupa 6, Bridget Wood 6, Makenna Baughman 6, Claire Kraft 5, Megan Gold 4, Raquel Frakes 4, Peyton Dearing 3, Olivia Remmert 2.

Fremd 65, Morton’s Lady Potters 59 (2 OT)

This is as good as girls basketball gets. Two of the state’s best teams created a double-overtime drama. We’ll get to the details. First, that shot by Courtney Jones.

There were 2 ½ seconds to play in the first overtime. Bob Becker crouched before his team and said they’d run a last-hope play they call “ka-ching.” They had practiced it just the day before. Down 59-56 and taking the ball out at the far end, a team with 2 ½ seconds to play has one chance to tie the game. It’s a slim chance. It is, mostly, no chance at all.

On the bench, Courtney Jones knew “ka-ching” was on her.

Katie Krupa would throw a long pass, past midcourt, a pass that is made with one hand, not an easy thing to do with a basketball, and Courtney Jones, backing out of the center circle, would catch the pass.

As the team listened to Becker’s plan, Lindsey Dullard reached over and patted Jones on the back. She said, “Let’s go, Courtney Jones.”

Jones thought, “I got this, I can do this.”

At midcourt, setting up for the long pass from Krupa, Jones looked back at the bench, at her coach, Bob Becker, and here’s what she did at that moment. She smiled. This was on her. She’s got this. She can do it.

“Then Katie threw a great pass,” Becker said. “She could play quarterback in the NFL.”

As Fremd seemed about to intercept the pass, the player stumbled. The ball glanced off her hands. Jones didn’t catch the ball in the air, but picked it up on the first bounce.

She turned to the basket, took one step, maybe two, things happening fast now, the 2 ½ seconds disappearing, Jones near the 3-point line with no time to square up for a legitimate shot.

“So I just layup’d it, almost,” Jones said, meaning that she put the shot in the air off her left foot, running and shooting from her hip, a slingshot throw more than a shot and . . .

“Oh, my gosh, I couldn’t believe it,” she said, because, as the backboard’s red lights flashed on saying time was gone, Jones’s shot hit that backboard and ricocheted into the net.

Alas, for all its wonder, for all the raucous celebration the Jones shot set off, the Potters did not score at all in the second overtime.

Bob Becker wanted a test for his Potters. He got it. Up by 15 points early against the Class 4A power (now 25-4) from the Chicago suburbs, still ahead by seven with 5 ½ minutes left in regulation, the Class 3A Potters (now 23-3) missed two shots to win at the first buzzer, needed Jones’s hero shot to tie it at the second buzzer, and then, worn out, lost for the first time since Christmas week.

Like all good coaches with good teams, Becker plays a long game. It’s nice to win in January. Nobody throws W’s back. But when you’re the Potters and you’re winning by 30 most nights, you’re not learning to produce under pressure that frightens you, tightens your throat, and causes your hands to go weak and sweaty. There’s no place to hide in such games, so you better get used to playing them if you want to win them. It’s Becker’s plan to have his team at its best when it means the most, which is in February, which is when the state tournaments begin those win-or-go-home games that define seasons for programs such as Morton’s.

So last fall when he needed another game to fill out the Potters’ schedule, he didn’t go looking for a cupcake. The Mid-Illini Conference supplies plenty of pastries. Becker wanted a game that would tell his team what it needed to win its fourth state championship in five seasons.

For a half, the Potters had everything a state champion must have. It led 35-20 with 1:38 left in the second quarter. That lead was built on remarkable outside shooting – Dullard with three 3’s, Tenley Dowell with two 3’s, and Maddy Becker with one. Of Morton’s 12 first-half buckets, then, half were from behind the arc. For Fremd’s coach, Dave Yates, proud of his team’s defensive skills, “Giving up 35 points in the first half was disheartening.” Then, asked what he liked most about the Potters, he said, “The way they shot it.”

An omen of trouble ahead may have come in that last minute of the first half. Fremd made two 3-pointers in that minute to cut the Potters’ 15-point lead to nine. By the end of the third, Fremd’s defense had asserted itself. Morton scored only nine points in the third, and only two in the last five minutes of the quarter.

Still, Morton led after the third, 44-4l, and moved in front 50-43 on Dowell’s three-point drive-and-free throw and Dullard’s fifth 3-pointer of the game. From that point on, with 5:49 on the clock, the Potters did not score in regulation time. It did have two chances to win. After working nearly a minute for a last shot, Morton got down to the final five seconds. Jones missed a 3-pointer from the deep left corner. Maddy Becker grabbed the loose ball and hurried one up from six feet that bounced away at the buzzer.

Primarily, Fremd’s defense won this one by clogging the lane with two and three defenders anytime Dowell and/or Dullard thought to attack the rim. After that dozen field goals in the first half, Morton managed only five in the second half and two in the overtimes, one of those the Jones answered prayer.

“Our defense really locked down in the second half,” Fremd’s coach, Yates, said. Becker agreed mostly. “We were going too much east-west,” he said. “They weren’t letting us get in the paint.” And Dowell, Morton’s leading scorer all season, agreed in her own way. “We got more passive in the second half,” she said. Whatever happened, after the explosive 35-point first half, Morton scored 15 in the second half, nine in the first overtime, and none in the second overtime.

Fremd’s Yates also credited his team’s depth as a decisive factor. Morton seemed worn out late. It has not been pushed that hard for a month and more. In the first overtime, for instance, Fremd made 6 of 8 free throws while Morton made only 4 of 9. (For the game, Fremd made 21 free throws to Morton’s 8.)

Dullard led Morton’s scoring with 21. Dowell had 17. Jones had 10, Krupa 6, Becker 3, and Raquel Frakes 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 59, Pekin 23

I have been in Pekin High School’s Dawdy Hawkins gymnasium many times. Usually, I’m alone. Or at least lonely, because the wide and tall bleachers are all but empty. Not tonight. For Senior Night tonight there was a good crowd, a few hundred fans, along with cheerleaders, a pep band, and a dance squad. I think I know why so many people came to the game.

They wanted OUT OF THE HOUSE!

Three days of Arctic weather!

Twenty-two below zero!

Snow, ice!

Enough!

Not to reveal my personal stupidity in this weather, but a guy’s gotta write about something. I had spike-y thingamajigs to wear on the bottom of my boots. They’re designed to bite into ice and keep a guy upright. So I went to the barn in a hurry one afternoon and decided I didn’t have time to put on my boots with the spike-y thingamajigs on the soles.

Naturally, I stepped on ice, slipped, and went into sub-orbital flight for several seconds before re-entering the atmosphere with a ker-THUD. Much cursing of stupidity ensued, along with the development of a softball-size hematoma, some bleeding, and bruising that resembled a map of South America.

Most people believe winter causes colds, flu, and other fender-benders of the body.

I believe winter causes stupidity.

I got a great big John Deere tractor stuck in a snowbank. That happened because I was stupid enough to be driving a great big John Deere tractor in a snowstorm near a snowbank on an icy lane.

I lost the use of a dependable farm utility vehicle, a six-wheel Gator, when I drove it into a snowbank trying to get to the great big John Deere tractor. I had to call a farm implement outfit in Bloomington to pull the Gator out of that snowbank. Naturally, that outfit also found repairs that the outfit decided were necessary. That cost me $209.

When the Gator was repaired and returned, I needed it to empty a horse manure wagon . . .

(Yes, I know. You came here for a basketball story and you’re getting a load of horse manure. Not the first load I’ve ever delivered, by the way. I once predicted Indiana would beat Kentucky in a big college basketball game. When Kentucky won, a reader sent me a plastic bag of brown stuff. He said, “Here is some pure Bluegrass horse manure, the same thing that column was made up of.”)

So I thought to empty that wagon and instead drove the Gator onto an icy ridge with spires that broke the drive chain. That one. $312.

Anyway, summer arrived today, with temperatures soaring into the high single figures. I was able to let my old mare, Sugar, out of her stall for the first time in four days. Sugar celebrated by sprinting out of there, leaping over snowbanks, and expressing the fullness of her joy by causing multiple evidences of flatulence to ring through the countryside.

The game tonight? Morton had better athletes, better basketball players, and lots more of both. Early in the season, you may remember, Pekin came to Morton. The halftime score was 53-0, Potters. This time it was 37-16 at the half and 46-18 after three quarters.

Morton is now 23-2 for the season and 11-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference. The victory, their 44th straight in conference play, assured the Potters of at least a tie for their fifth straight league championship. Pekin is 4-22 and 1-11.

Tenley Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 20. Lindsey Dullard had 10. Raquel Frakes had 6, Kathryn Reiman 5. Katie Krupa 5, Maddy Becker 3, Makenna Baughman 3. Claire Kraft 2. Addi Cox 2, Peyton Dearing 2, Megan Gold 1.

Morton’s Lady Potters 69, Metamora 37

I love Pink Night. We pray for our loved ones and we give thanks for those who have survived cancer. Tonight the Lady Potters presented a $5,000 check to the CancerCare Foundation. Players in uniform climbed into the Potterdome bleachers delivering pink roses to survivors among the 1,000 spectators. On the video board, it was 2013 again and there was Mary Schultz, the Team Mom in the last winter of her inspiring life, wearing her official scorer’s striped shirt, singing the Star Spangler Banner.

On this night, there were cheerleaders and there was the high school dance squad, 17 girls strong, doing its happy thing, and the pep band musicians, all in pink, stopped their music to chant, “Kath-RYN Rei-MAN! . . . Kath-RYN Rei-MAN!”

I asked the Lady Potters’ junior guard why that happened.

“I’m in the band,” she said, laughing.

What instrument?

“Drums. I’m in the marching band,” she said, which explains it all because the pep band’s leader, Bob Hornsby, is also the marching band’s drum line director.

Yes, Pink Night in the heartland. The best of America.

Again, the Lady Potters won easily over a Mid-Illini Conference opponent once thought to be a challenge. The only question was when they’d get a 30-point lead and invoke the running-clock mercy rule. Well, I say it was the only question when, really, my primary question concerned Tenley Dowell’s well-being.

Metamora’s defensive strategy against the Potters’ senior star was simple. Beat her up. Knock her down. Hammer her on every shot. Tackle her if necessary. At game’s end, I told my buddy, the photographer Don Pyles, “I’ll write about the way Metamora hacked and bumped and knocked Tenley Dowell around. That’s the picture to go with the blog.” Don said, “I’ll see what I’ve got.” What he had, as you can see on this page, is the absolutely perfect picture of Dowell’s night. Her hair is flying sixteen directions. She is about to crash-land a nano-second after tossing the ball toward the hoop. Look at that picture again. Really look. If you didn’t know this was basketball, you might swear she’s being tackled by a Metamora linebacker.

All night long, it went on. Maybe five, six times, the referees called fouls away from the ball on Metamora players who threw themselves into Dowell’s path. Maybe a dozen other times, they called nothing. All night long, every time Dowell thought to slash through Metamora’s defense, with the ball or without the ball, Metamora’s strategy was to . . .

Well, listen to Dowell . . .

“They’d be bumping into me, holding me, grabbing my jersey. Everywhere I went, they did it.”

Football coaches have this drill where they give the ball to a guy and send him through a gauntlet of players trying to knock the ball out of his hands. Dowell’s night was a fumble drill. The wonder is, she didn’t seem to mind.

“Tenley does a great job of keeping her composure,” her coach, Bob Becker, said. “She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t say anything to the referees, she just keeps playing. That’s the way the great ones do it.”

This is not to suggest we should feel sorry for the Potters or for Dowell. Morton is now 22-2 for the season and at 10-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference is on a 43-game winning streak in the league. The Potters can take care of themselves. So can Dowell. She’s a big-time player, tall, lean, and strong. I was, in fact, reminded of how big and strong she is by a Facebook post the other day.

The post showed a 2011 summer travel team that was said to include the future Potter state champions Caylie Jones, Josi Becker, and Tenley Dowell. I recognized Jones and Becker. But Dowell? I needed a friend to point her out. I said, “THAT’s Tenley?” She was small, even tiny, considerably shorter than the then-and-forever small Josi Becker. “That was before the growth spurt,” my friend said with a laugh, for Dowell is now a 6-footer who takes no prisoners.

Those last few words are a touch strong. They suggest that Dowell – who will play next season at Butler University – comes ready for war. More precisely, she’s never an aggressor but she absolutely takes whatever the enemy dishes out and comes back for more.

“I’ve kinda gotten used to it,” Dowell said, for she knows that if an All-State player earns a reputation for elegant moves to the rim, that player is going to run into lesser athletes who have given up on finesse and rely on force. “Richwoods does it to me, too, but I think Metamora did it more tonight than anybody.”

Like a few Mid-Illini teams, Metamora hung around for maybe half of the first quarter. It trailed then, 14-7. But in the next 4 four minutes and 49 seconds, the Potters went on a 16-2 run that established exactly who was in charge here. Five different Potters scored in that run, everything coming off the team’s relentless movement at both ends. I doubt there’s anybody in Class 3A that does transition basketball better than these Potters. Perhaps we’ll find out in the next month leading to the Final Four at Redbird Arena.

Lindsey Dullard led Morton’s scoring tonight with 18. Maddy Becker and Dowell had 11 each, Courtney Jones 10. Raquel Frakes had 7, Bridget Wood and Megan Gold 4 each, and Olivia Remmert and Makenna Baughman 2 each.

Morton’s Lady Potters 66, Washington 41, Pep Band A+

Let’s say you’re that little red-headed guard for Washington. Your job is to get the ball in-bounds against the Potters’ press. Hah. Good luck with that, little red-headed guard. You can’t throw it over Lindsey Dullard, who at 6-foot-1 can look down on your little red head. Nor can you throw it around her because Dullard has longggggggggg arms. Maybe you could dig a tunnel under her if you had time, but you only have five seconds, so you fling the ball to anyone in home white, and then Dullard really does a thing.

She attacks the unfortunate girl who accepted the in-bounds pass and causes her to pawn it off on somebody who doesn’t want it, either, and gets it back to the little red-headed guard who waterbugs downcourt – “waterbugs” is how the Morton coach, Bob Becker, describes a zig-zagging dribble through his press – and finds herself in the paint, where she has escaped all that Dullard trouble at the other end – 80 feet back there where Dullard made her miserable – now she’s in the paint and the little red-headed guard puts up a little shot that is. . .

Blocked.

It barely gets out of the little red-head’s hands before it is . . .

Knocked out of the air by . . .

Dullard.

Lindsey Dullard had . . . wait, what?

She did WHAT? She was on one end line making the in-bounder miserable? Then she’s on the other end line making that same little red-headed girl more miserable? Methinks that at 3 o’clock this morning the little red-head will curl up under the blankets and say, in a whisper, “Please, big tall girl, leave me alone, I got class in the morning.”

In the meantime, Dullard will sleep the deep, restorative sleep of a player who saw the waterbug in the paint and decided, “Why don’t I try to block it?” She said those words with a winner’s smile on a night when my play-by-play notes contained these scribbles: “Dull, KK block together” . . . “Dull bock, all way from point” . . .”Dull block” . . . “Dull steal” . . . “Dull steal to Maddy 3” . . .”TD cutting, lu, Dull pass.” (Code: KK is Katie Krupa, Maddy is Maddy Becker, TD is Tenley Dowell, lu is layup.)

Or, in fewer words, here’s a word from Bob Becker on Lindsey Dullard: “Phenomenal.”

He said that after she scored all of seven points.

“She’s attacking, she’s aggressive, she’s deflecting balls, she’s rebounding, she’s blocking shots, she’s making the extra pass,” Becker said. “Everybody knows she can score, but right now – a stretch of games now, five, six games in a row – she has been a complete player.” Then Becker said what coaches love to say because it speaks to the very foundation of really good teams: “She’s making everybody better.”

Hey, it was 40-15 at the half. No contest. In two runs that lasted 7 minutes and 34 seconds, Morton outscored Washington, 24-0. Superior in every way, Morton was again what Bob Becker has made his mantra: “Relentless.” Aggressive at both ends for 32 minutes, whether with the starters or reserves, the Potters rendered Washington helpless en route to its 42nd straight victory in the Mid-Illini Conference. And Washington is as good as it gets in the rest of the league. It was 19-4 overall, 6-2 in the league. Morton is now 21-2 and 9-0.

My biggest worry tonight was – yes, it was, it always is and has been in each of eight previous winters — my biggest worry was again exposing my delicate ears to the work of the Washington High School pep band. It has never played music in my presence. It has played explosions. Apprehensive about what was to come, as the clock ticked toward the game’s 7 o’clock tipoff tonight, I made pep-band notes:

6:08: keyboards appear . . . 6:12: music stands set up . . . 6:14: brass arrives, trombones, trumpets, a baritone sax bigger than the girl carrying it . . . 6:34: oh, no, DRUMS! . . . 6:42: it’s beginning, please, God . . . . .

Only it was great. In an historical Mid-Illini upset, the Washington High pep band was great. No amps. Music, identifiable as such. Only 20 musicians. And they left at halftime. Bless ‘em all.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 13. Maddy Becker and Courtney Jones had 11 each, Peyton Dearing 10, Dullard 7, Kathryn Reiman 5, Raquel Frakes 3, Krupa and Megan Gold 2 apiece, Bridget Wood and Addie Cox 1 each.

By the way, once again the Potters’ faithful missed out on FREE CUSTARD! The Potters made 11 3’s (three each for Jones and Becker). But the magic 10 is good only for home games. Something must be done.

Morton’s Lady Potters 85, East Peoria 9

Well.

Let’s see.

No, I can’t say that.

That, either.

But I gotta start somewhere, so how about this . . .

With a minute and 25 seconds to play in the third quarter, Morton’s Bridget Wood made a free throw. As the ball slipped through the net, nine Potters leaped off the bench, cheering like crazy, creating a sudden explosion of happiness seldom seen outside the last seconds of a state championship game.

I checked my pulse. Was I alive? I rubbed my eyes. Had I slept through nerve-wracking suspense surrounding Wood’s free throw? I looked at the scoreboard. It showed Wood had moved Morton’s lead to 59-7. I looked at Wood. She looked at the bench. She smiled and started laughing, right there at the line while the referee, waiting to toss her the ball again, wondered, like the rest of us, “Huh?”

But Wood knew what those funsters on the bench were doing because she’d done it herself. To stay awake on nights like this, the reserves decide among themselves they’re going to go crazy when one of their buddies does something. This time she just happened to be the one doing the something.

“And I couldn’t stop laughing,” Wood said later. She stopped long enough to make the second free throw, too.

Or I could start like this . . .

The Morton coach, Bob Becker, with the game well in hand, sent in six substitutes at once. That decision seemed to be a bit of overkill. The Potters led by 46 points and East Peoria hadn’t scored since the day Abe Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg. It might have been more generous to the visitors from East Peoria had Becker decided to play three girls rather than six.

As the six checked in at the scorer’s table, one, the sophomore Raquel Frakes, noticed there were six of them.

“I wasn’t supposed to be with that group, I was with the next group,” she said later, explaining her smiling, sheepish slinking back to the bench. “Embarrassing,” she said.

Or maybe I should start with Makenna Baughman under the basket, which is where the junior plays and where she had the ball in a crowd of East Peorians when she decided, hey, why not?

“I saw an opening,” she said, and she went up for a nifty reverse layup off the glass that brought the reserves off the bench and celebrating in sincerity this time.

If not with Wood and Baughman and Frakes, I could start simply by saying the Potters just keep doing it. They’re 20-2 for the season, 8-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference. “The kids were just great,” Becker said, and I am here to say they were so good at both ends as to supply a full answer to the question: Are the Potters that good? Yes. On defense, they dared East Peoria to complete a pass. On offense, they dared East Peoria to make a stop. This was basketball of the Golden State Warriors kind.

Or, maybe, in light of recent developments, I should start this way . . .

“Be kind, Dave,” someone said. Everyone’s an editor, y’know, and all those editors in FacebookNation thought I had not been fully appreciative of East Peoria’s effort in its recent narrow loss to the Potters, 67-13. So, in the wake of tonight’s nail-biter, they counseled me to emphasize East Peoria’s good work. As luck would have it, I made notes that caught East Peoria’s very best moments, late in the third quarter.

In a stirring rally that ran 57 seconds, East Peoria outscored Morton, 4-2. Suddenly, the visitors had reduced the Potters’ lead to 51 points at 58-7.

“Behave,” another someone said. That admonition is more difficult for an old man so angry, so belligerent, so persistently evil that he often wears mismatched socks just to annoy his loved ones. But with that editor’s order ringing in my ears, I am here to say one gentlemanly thing about East Peoria.

Had the game gone on into February, the way East Peoria was cutting into Morton’s lead two points at a time, they might have caught up by Valentine’s Day.

But alas, alack, and sad to say for the East Peorians, their brave rally had a short life. Morton went on to score the game’s next 25 points. And the game ended just after 8 o’clock on January 18, the same day it started.

There, I feel better already.

Maddy Becker, with three 3’s, led Morton’s scoring with 17. Tenley Dowell had 16 and Katie Krupa 11. Lindsey Dullard had 8, Wood and Olivia Remmert 6, Kathryn Reiman 5, Courtney Jones and Frakes 4, with 2 apiece from Baughman, Addie Cox, Peyton Dearing, and Megan Gold.

(For more on the Lady Potters, go to Mortonladypotters.com. Thanks.)

Morton’s Lady Potters 74, Bloomington 38

About 3 o’clock this afternoon, Courtney Jones made five straight 3-point shots from the deep right corner. The Lady Potters were doing a shoot-around before getting on the team bus to Bloomington. I’d say they were meaningless shots, except they meant everything to Jones. On the fifth 3-pointer, she told her shooting partner, Kathryn Reiman, “I’m going to have a day.”

About 10 minutes after 7 tonight, Jones began having that day. From a foot outside the arc on the left side, she made a 3-pointer. By game’s end, the 5-foot-8 junior had made two more 3’s and racked up 19 points, a career high. I need to tell you about the second of her 3’s because what she did that time down the floor was typical of what she did all night every time down.

First she missed a wide-open layup at the low left block.

“Oh, my gosh,” is what she thought, “I gotta get the rebound.”

I know what she thought because Courtney Jones can talk you some talk and when a reporter asks her a question he better be ready to take some seriously fast notes because Courtney Jones – well, the great old basketball player, Curley Boo Johnson, one day told me, “That Courtney Jones, she’s going to be a lawyer,” by which Curley Boo meant that Courtney Jones can talk the leg off a table.

“And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maddy,” Jones said, meaning she grabbed the rebound of her own missed shot and got a pass out to the top of the key where Maddy Becker put up a 3-point shot that missed, and the long rebound went flying toward the right sideline where . . .

“I see the girl is not going to go all-out for it,” Jones said, meaning a Bloomington High player thought she might lollygag over there and catch the missed shot on the first bounce, which she might have done if she’d been playing against a team of lollygaggers. Instead, here came Jones from the low left block sprinting at a 30-degree angle all the way to the right sideline, leaving that Bloomington lollygagger wondering what that zooming sound was she just heard, that sound being Courtney Jones zooming past her to grab her second rebound of the trip downcourt, after which she . . .

“Passed it to somebody,” Jones said, for by then she cared only about getting it to somebody in a Morton red uniform, and that person did the smart Lady Potters thing of giving the ball back to Courtney Jones, the hot hand, and from the top of the key, 20 feet away from where she’d missed the wide-open layup five seconds earlier, Jones made her second 3 of the night.

“Courtney Jones had a great night,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said.

Oh, wait. I forgot one thing.

The smile.

In the nano-second following her missed layup and pass out to Becker, Courtney Jones allowed herself a shy little smile saying the same thing that she thought, which we know was, “Oh, my gosh.”

This is a smiling team. And why not? They’re 19-2, they’re winning games by 30 a night, and their coach thinks they can win a state championship. So what if Bloomington trailed at the quarter only 19-15? It’s only a matter of time. The Potters do so many things so well and do them relentlessly at both ends for all 32 minutes that every opponent is turned into a weary bunch of gasping lollygaggers. At halftime, Morton led, 38-26. After three quarters it was 60-35 and the Bloomington public address announcer said, “Morton wins . . . ” before realizing there was another quarter of pain to go.

Speaking of smiles, here’s Katie Krupa. She’s a freshman, a 6-foot post player. With the other starters, she was on the bench early in the fourth quarter. Then Bob Becker called for her as part of a five-player wave of subs.

He said to her, “You’re 4,” meaning she wouldn’t be in the post, she’d be outside somewhere, and here, verbatim, with a smile suggested, is what Katie Krupa said then, “YES!”

And what does she do from outside?

Of course.

She puts up a 3-point shot.

Her first of the season.

It’s nothing but net.

Of course.

Next time down, the ball in Krupa’s hands out there again, she looks at the rim, raises on her toes ever so slightly, and . . .

“I had to look for somebody to pass it to,” she said. “I didn’t want to look selfish or something.”

And after the pass, she allowed herself a little we’re-just-girls-having-fun smile.

Morton made three big runs to win this one: 11-0, 12-0, and 13-0. That’s 36-0 in 10 minutes and 29 seconds.

Jones led Morton’s scoring with 19. Lindsey Dullard had 17 (also with three 3’s). Tenley Dowell had 13, Krupa 7, Bridget Wood 5, Raquel Frakes 5, Megan Gold 4, Becker 2, and Olivia Remmert 2.

By the way, the Potters had 10 3’s tonight. Alas, because they were on the road, far away from Culver’s, it was not a FREE CUSTARD! night.

 

Morton’s Lady Potters 60, Galesburg 16

It was 16-2 when Galesburg’s coach, Evan Massey, called his first timeout. Barely five minutes into game, he wants a timeout. Sixteen seconds later, Massey asked for another. Successive timeouts mean a coach suspects his team is in trouble. When he calls those timeouts 16 seconds apart, it means the coach knows there’s big trouble and there’s no way out of it.

Soon enough, the score was 27-5.

Then 52-11.

Relentless domination has become the Potters’ theme. They were so good everywhere tonight that it’s impossible to say it was an extraordinary offensive performance or an extraordinary defensive performance. Call it a tour de force at both ends. Now 18-2 for the year, the Potters are on a run during which they’re winning by nearly 30 a night.

I thought to ask Massey about the Potters.

“I don’t have time right now,” he said, hurrying to do a post-game radio show.

As he left his locker room later and headed to a Potterdome exit, I called out, “Coach?”

He didn’t stop. So I went to his radio guy, Tom Meredith, for a summary of Massey’s thoughts.

“He said Morton’s defense didn’t let us get into a flow,” Meredith said. “And every time we made a mistake, Morton capitalized on it. He also said Morton is an elite team and we’re a second-tier team.”

No wonder he wanted those timeouts.

On defense, the Potters did make life miserable for any Galesburg player who thought to do anything with the ball, such as throw a pass, catch a pass, take a shot, or be so brash as think of taking a shot. “Timid and scared,” Morton’s Tenley Dowell said in assessment of the Silver Streaks’ offense. Did Galesburg’s best shooter, so unfortunate as to be defended personally by Dowell, even get off a shot? “Maybe one, but it wasn’t a good one,” Dowell said. She spoke with such a sweet little killer smile.

Offensively, as always, Dowell was an elegant attacker, scoring on driving, curling, sneaking-over-the-rim layups delivered softly against the glass with either hand. As they do to most all comers lately, the Potters took Galesburg’s breath away with a transition game that moves so quickly even its practitioners can’t keep up – as we see here in a reporter’s exchange with Morton’s littlest starter, 5-foot-4 Maddy Becker . . .

Reporter: “You even got a rebound and got it to Megan Gold for a spin move layup.”

Becker: “No, I didn’t.”

Reporter: “You did.”

Becker: “Uhh…”

Reporter: “My notes, from 4:38 of the third quarter: ‘Maddy reb, pass, Gold LU.’”

This was not Morton winning big over a Mid-Illini Conference mediocrity. This was Morton winning extraordinarily over a school with a great coach and a distinguished history in girls basketball. The coach, Massey, in his 41st season, was elected to the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame 19 years ago. Back then, young Bob Becker was in his second season as the Morton coach, a neophyte who’d seen Massey and Galesburg in the Final Four at Redbird Arena. That year set his ambition running hot. Becker wanted to create a program like Galesburg’s, so good that its legitimate goal every year was a trip to Redbird.

Becker has done that and more, his Potters winning state championships in 2015, ’16, and ’17, years of success that in 2017 earned him his own place in that IBCA Hall of Fame.

And he’s not done yet. After this game – the first in Potterdome history matching Hall of Fame coaches – Becker was euphoric. There’s no other word for a coach who says, “This team could be in the midst of a really special, special year.” When your resume includes three state championships, it’s a big deal when you say your current team can create a “really special, special year.” He is talking about a fourth state championship in five seasons.

Becker saw good things done everywhere tonight, from his starters through the nine-man bench. Lindsey Dullard starred at both ends, the 6-foot-1 junior scary-good on defense and working both at point guard and inside with confidence born of repeated success. With three 6-footers in the starting lineup – Dullard, Dowell, and the precocious freshman Katie Krupa – Morton has the long, lean look of a basketball team that can beat you any way you choose to be beaten, from inside or outside, on the run or out of sets, and it can always win with defense that leaves the poor, poor enemy trembling in its sneakers.

Becker loves the team’s chemistry, too. “They’re all smiling,” he said. “Even Maddy. You see her throw up an airball 3? And she smiled about it.”

Really, Maddy, a smile on an airball?

In answer, she laughed.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 15. Dullard had 11. Krupa had 8, Becker and Gold 6 each, Peyton Dearing 5, Claire Kraft 4, Bridget Wood 3, and Addie Cox 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 61, Dunlap 37

Fifteen seconds into it, before anyone had done anything much, the Morton coach, Bob Becker, saw the ball in Courtney Jones’s hands just outside the arc on the right side at the far end of the court. He shouted, “Stick it in the hoop, Courtney Jones!” Her 3-pointer missed, but no matter. Tonight the coach was feeling it. Next time down, Becker shouted at everyone who touched the ball against the Dunlap zone. “Move it! MOVE IT!” And, “The ball can’t STICK!”

The nice thing about being a coach in his 20th season is that his players may not hear him from that distance, but they for sure know what he’s saying because they’ve heard it a dozen, hundred, thousand times in practice. And they do – you bet they do – they MOVE IT! and it does not STICK!

Here’s another one, “REBOUND!” Y’know, in case they forget to rebound. My favorite of the CoachShouts is, “GO! GO! GO!” With that one Becker is reminding his girls that, once you have the rebound, the next move is not to stand there proud of what you’ve done. Nor does he expect you to embrace the ball, perhaps even give it a smooch, as if after years you’ve met a long-gone friend.

What Becker means by “GO! GO! GO!” is what Lindsey Dullard did when Dunlap, down only 13-8, missed its first shot of the second quarter. From somewhere near the free throw line, Dullard, a 6-foot-1 junior, came flying in for the REBOUND! With the ball clamped in both hands, she ripped it away from a couple Dunlap bystanders. Then, back on Earth, Dullard spun to her right and . . .

Let her tell it.

“I took off,” she said.

Meaning she WENT! WENT! WENT!

“I kept my head up,” she said, which is what the good players learn from the good coaches, keep your eyes up, looking ahead, seeing what’s happening downcourt, as Dullard did even while sprinting on the dribble from the Dunlap end until she’s near mid-court when . . .

“I saw Katie open,” Dullard said, speaking of her teammate Katie Krupa, maybe 30 feet ahead, and . . .

“I lobbed it to her,” Dullard said.

Fouled at the rim, Krupa made two free throws to start an 11-0 run in which Dullard was the major player without scoring a point. After a Maddy Becker 3, Krupa scored on a layup at the end of a fast break ignited by another Dullard REBOUND! followed by a crisp outlet pass that led to Tenley Dowell’s sneaky left-handed entry pass to Krupa.

That run capped off a 21-2 run in 5 minutes and gave Morton a 24-8 lead that early in the third quarter had grown to 45-18. Game over.

As to Dullard’s performance, listen to Becker again.

“Lindsey was in BEAST MODE for a huge part of the game,” the coach said. “She must have had a double-double tonight. She did everything — rebounding, court vision, defense – she was a special, special player tonight. BEAST MODE!”

At the point of Morton’s pressing defense, Dullard creates problems that most opponents cannot solve. They can’t be sure in throwing it over her, they can’t be sure in throwing it around her, and if they stand there with it, they can be sure she’ll take it out of their hands. There came a moment in the fourth quarter when a little Dunlap shooter went up for a 3-point try at the top of the key. Trouble was, the taller Dullard went up with her, after which this happened . . .

The Dunlap shooter didn’t shoot. She went up, saw the Dullard problem, decided she couldn’t solve it, and as she came down, she turned the would-be 3 into a sheepish pass.

Morton is now 17-2 for the season. It finished the first half of the Mid-Illini Conference schedule 7-0 and has now won 40 straight Mid-Illini games. Dunlap is 11-6 overall, 4-3 in the conference.

According to my scorekeeping, Dowell led Morton with 20 points. Dullard had 13 (including two 3’s). Krupa and Maddy Becker had 8 each. Jones had 7, Peyton Dearing 5, and Raquel Frakes 2. (Mathematicians will notice that these numbers add up to 63. I don’t know where I made the mistake. I gave someone 2 extra points. You’re welcome.)

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.

 

Morton’s Lady Potters 43, Richwoods 42

Used to, when she was a kid, she’d dribble the thing five times, spin it in her hands, and then get around to shooting the free throw. Now that she’s a freshman in high school, she’s done with all that adolescent showing-off stuff. Now Katie Krupa bounces it low once, picks it up, shoots the thing. “Muscle memory,” she said. “I went out with my dad yesterday and shot some free throws. I just needed to get some arc on it. As long as I get some arc, it’s good.”

So with 5.7 seconds to play today and Morton trailing by a point, Krupa found herself at the free throw line with a chance to win an important game.

Nervous much, on a scale of 1 to 10?

“Not really,” Krupa said. “A 4 maybe.”

Bounce, catch, shoot, nice arc. Game tied.

Bounce, catch, shoot, beautiful arc. Morton up, 43-42.

In the last seconds, Richwoods managed only an out-of-control shot that had no chance of going in. And Morton not only had won the third-place game in the State Farm Holiday Classic, it had, for the moment, anyway, exorcised the demon that is Richwoods. Three times in a row, including twice last season en route to a state championship that ended Morton’s three-year run, Richwoods had beaten Morton. The Richwoods people even talked out loud about going undefeated this season, a thing they could do, most likely, only if they beat Morton three more times. They won a double-overtime thriller at the Potterdome in November. Today, though, Morton restored order to the basketball universe.

Not that anyone will judge today’s game a masterpiece. Both teams came in after dispiriting semifinal losses last night. Whatever sleep the players got, it had to come quickly. Tip-off for this one was at noon. What could have been an electrifying championship game became a third-place game that was ordinary – until, in the last quarter, Morton teased its fans with a runaway and then left them breathless with a cliffhanging finale.

First the Potters built a 16-point lead with 7:22 to play. But Richwoods went on a 19-2 run that gave it the lead, 42-41, with only 29 seconds left. “I don’t know if ‘panic’ is the right word,” Bob Becker, the Morton coach, said, “but all of a sudden they’ve got the lead.”

After Tenley Dowell missed the front end of a bonus situation at :27.5, Richwoods returned the favor by giving up the ball on a traveling violation at :14.8. Coming upcourt under pressure, Dowell got the ball to Raquel Frakes left of the lane. Frakes moved toward the lane on a dribble and got the ball across the paint to Krupa on the low right block.

Krupa, the 6-foot freshman. Krupa, 15 years old, who all day long outplayed Richwoods’s senior first-team all-stater, the bigger, stronger Camryn Taylor, soon to play for Marquette University.

Taking Frakes’s pass, Krupa did what the good ones do. She went up to score, knowing she’d win the game there or be fouled with a chance to win it at the line. Going up, she was hammered across both arms by Taylor. Then came the two free throws with 5.7 seconds to play.

“Now we know for a fact that we can beat Richwoods,” Bob Becker said. “We just did it.”

After the game, I noticed Krupa had a small, rosy egg rising above her left eyebrow. “That bump, where’d it come from?”

“Camryn,” Krupa said.

“What’d she hit you with?”

“Elbow.”

Said casually. An elbow. Of course an elbow. No saints in the pivot. Said with a winner’s knowing smile.

The Potters’ 16-point lead was largely the result of a 14-0 run that covered the last half of the third quarter and a minute of the fourth. It began with a Dowell floater in the lane, followed by two Krupa buckets (one from 17 feet, the other at the rim). Dowell then came with a gliding attack and left-handed finish before Maddy Becker and Lindsey Dullard capped off the run with 3-pointers. The Potters led, 38-22 with 7:22 to play. From there on, the Potters hung on.

I loved two things most about this game: 1) Dowell was fabulous as the Potters point guard. “We came out with a lot of intensity,” the 6-foot senior said without noting that a large degree of that intensity emanated from her. If the Potters had the ball for, say, 20 minutes, it was in Dowell’s hands 19 minutes, every minute contested by Richwoods’ aggressive, body-bumping, hacking defenders. Dowell played the full 32 minutes and led Morton’s scoring with 17. And 2) a star was born. We knew Katie Krupa was good, the best freshman since Brandi Bisping. Today she showed us we have seen only the beginning. Twice today, once from 15 feet, once from 17, she made mid-range jump shots. I’d seen her shoot well from out there in practices, but those were her first two in a game. There will be more.

Krupa had 12 points today. (Taylor had 11.) Becker and Dullard had 6 apiece (all on 3’s), and Courtney Jones 2.