Author: Dave Kindred

The renowned sports journalist, Mr. Dave Kindred has only missed a handful of Lady Potters games since he began attended them in 2010. Since moving back to the area after spending the last 45 years traveling the globe in search of yet another sports story, Dave has found comfort in being a "fan". He isn't sure how many times he had to repeat the line "I'm not a fan, I'm a writer" throughout his career. Being a fan can cloud the objectivity of capturing those wonderful sports stories we often read. But now, Dave feels at peace with just enjoying Morton Lady Potters basketball. Lest you think Kindred’s work is a story of the past, think again. He has just finished writing "Mighty in Heart", a book that chronicles the Morton Lady Potters' 2014-15 State Championship Season. As director of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University, he recently wrote for a weekly on-line column that has dealt with, among other topics, Twitter. For more information on Dave Kindred, the columns he's written, the books he's published and more, click here.

“Lady Potters Shine Bright, Defeat Galesburg”

January 20, 2024

Lady Potters 46, Galesburg 33

If you had to pick a moment, it’s when Katie Brock, the littlest Potter, threw herself onto a loose ball at midcourt.

Galesburg came to the Potterdome all puffed up, losers only twice in 22 games and ranked #4 in the state. For the Potters, this game was big. Win it, you’re somebody. Lose it, you wonder who you are.

And there was little Katie Brock throwing herself under a Galesburg player who made the mistake of getting careless with the ball in Katie’s quicksilver presence. She’s 5-foot-1, a junior who comes off the bench, a pest playing defense and a trusted ball-handler. She’s happy with maybe one shot a month.

Tonight, after creating and chasing down that loose ball, Katie rolled onto her back at midcourt and somehow shuffled the ball over her head to – things happen fast around Katie – let’s say she got the rock to Izzy Hutchinson, who sprinted downcourt and passed to . . .

Katie, who . . .

Had clambered up from the floor and materialized at the top of the key.

There, as Galesburg had done all night, they chose to leave her alone. They clogged the lane against Morton’s driving scorers, playing 5 against 4. That was a mistake that Katie had foreseen.

“They hadn’t guarded me all night,” she said. “I had decided that the next time I got the ball in that spot, I was going to pull up and shoot it. And I was at the exact spot.”

She took a step forward. Nobody moved toward her. Another step. Still, Galesburg watched because they figured she would not drive for a layup. A Katie Brock standing on a Katie Brock’s shoulders might touch the rim. She is bright enough to know she does not mix well with the big girls in the paint.

Dared to shoot, Katie popped it in from 12 feet. To judge by the Potters bench people leaping in celebration, it could have been from 50 feet, only her third or fourth field goal of the season. (“I’ve got maybe 10 points all season. That’s not my thing.”)

The beauty of it was, Katie's bucket was a killer. With 2:35 left in the third quarter, it gave the Potters their biggest lead, 39-22, and this one was over.

I won’t call it an upset. Morton was #6 in the latest Class 3A poll with a 17-5 record that included victories over everyone they were expected to beat and losses only to teams with state-championship aspirations – except for last week’s loss at Washington, and that one became a turning point for the Potters.

“Since the Washington game,” coach Bob Becker said of a dispiriting 45-34 defeat, “we had a week of practices where we got better every day. It’s exciting to see.”

They were so much better tonight that Galesburg led only once, and only briefly before the Potters asserted themselves in arguably their best beginning-to-end, full-court performance of the season. In six minutes of the second and third quarters, the Potters went on a 21-4 run to move ahead 33-18.

Ellie VanMeenen scored nine of the 21 (two 3’s in there). Izzy Hutchinson’s four points included a mid-court steal and breakaway layup. Addy Engel’s five came with two slashing drives, the prettiest finished high off the glass. Abby VanMeenen’s three included another put-back of the kind she has shown of late. The freshman said, “We’re starting to show who we really are.”

Ellie VanMeenen led Morton’s scoring with 16, and sister Abby had 10, causing Ellie, a junior, to say, “She’s finally figured out she’s 6 feet tall.” Engel had 10, Hutchinson 6, Paige Selke 2, and Brock those sweet 2.

“Lady Potters Start Strong, Hold Off Metamora: A Tale of Triumph and Technicals”

January 19, 2024

Lady Potters 50, Metamora 41

The good news tonight, the Potters led after a quarter, 17-0.

Better news, it was 30-8 at halftime.

The best news is I can quote, plain word for plain word, with no #$%# deleted, what the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said to a referee whose rabbit ears twitched so much he relieved himself by calling a technical foul on the coach.

But the happiest news came just before game time.

That’s when my iPhone delivered the luminous face of an all-time Potters great, Brandi Bisping, who carried teams to three straight state championships, the last in 2017. She held her left hand high, the better to show off a glittering engagement ring, there with her guy, Isaac Dirker.

If you will, please, look at this list. You know who these people are. Call the roll: Carly, Kait, Erin, Emma, Kayla, Chandler, Kathleen, and Jacey. They were kids, teenagers trying to grow up, when we first saw them as Potters. Now they’re married, all those stars from a decade of wonderful teams.

Next, Brandi.

Somebody call timeout, time’s flying.

Alas, alack, and sad to say, the news was not all good tonight. For instance, these current day Potters had to play the second half.

Smooth and strong early, the last two quarters they were a sputtering mess, passive on defense, worse on offense, and not for the first time lately but for yet another time. Take away the first quarter and the Potters lose, 41-33. They would lose to the last-place team in the Mid-Illini Conference, a team now 1-8 in the league and 9-16 overall.

The first quarter, all good, some of it very good, beginning with Addy Engel’s 3-pointer from the left corner. When she next missed a free throw, Ellie VanMeenen scored on the rebound. Engel banked in an off-hand driving layup, then freshman Paige Selke took over, first with a put-back, then a 3 and a drive of her own. Abby VanMeenen’s two free throws made it 17-0.

Happy, satisfied, rooting for a running clock – snow was coming, the roads would be bad, the jayvee game went three overtimes, let’s get outta here quick – I even sneaked another look at the iPhone, just for the fun of seeing Brandi again, shining.

In that 30-8 half, Engel had 13 points, again the heartbeat of the Potters’ offense. Abby VanMeenen had a big-timer’s look inside. Selke had that minute and a half run. Izzy Hutchinson did all the small, important stuff you notice only if you’re taking notes on hustle plays that make a team look efficient.

“The first half,” Hutchinson said, “we played with a ton of intensity. That’s the way we need to play for 32 minutes.”

Becker said much the same. “There was definitely a drop-off in the second half. And we can’t do that. The challenge is to be more consistent.”

Now, as to Becker and the zebra . . .

With 1:47 to play, the Potters were up 50-33. Becker was three feet out on the court, with his arms spread wide, as if to say he could not believe what he had seen. He had seen Abby VanMeenen hacked by a defender, with nothing called, and as the referee passed by, Becker commented on the man's work.

“I said, ‘You’re refereeing to the score, not to the game.’”

For that, from 25 feet away, the referee turned and called a technical foul on the coach.

Seeing the T sign, Becker commented further.

“It’s true,” he said to the referee, now heard from three rows up in the bleachers.

Just in case, Becker repeated the message.

“It’s true.”

Anyway, Metamora scored the game’s last eight points.

Morton is now 17-5, 8-1 in the Mid-Illini. The Potters next play Saturday night, at home, against a strong Galesburg team, now 20-2, that they may play again in the regionals early next month.

Oh, one more piece of good news. In the scary, swirling snow as we left Metamora, I saw a car turn off 116 onto Washington Road. Navigator Bumgarner said, "Follow that car." An hour later, Casey greeted me at the garage door. Good kitty, she earned two treats this time.

Abby VanMeenen led the Potters’ scoring with 14 (8 of the team’s 20 in the second half). Addy Engel had 13, Ellie VanMeenen 7, Paige Selke 7, Izzy Hutchinson 6, and Emilia Miller 3.

“Lady Potters Bounce Back: Dominant Victory Over Canton Warms Winter Night”

January 13, 2024

Lady Potters 49, Canton 30

Baby, cold today. Nine degrees and headed lower. Frozen snow covered the heartland’s frozen earth. It was time to light up the fireplace and stir up a hot toddy, a sweet elixir known in our old Georgia homeplace as “mama’s southern cough syrup.”

Instead, the hardiest of us ventured into the arctic air to the Potterdome where we were rewarded for our bravery in the first three minutes of a game that might suggest how the Lady Potters would rebound from a bad loss at Washington and play in these last three weeks of the regular season.

In those three minutes against a 15-5 team coming off an eight-game winning streak, Morton sprinted to an 11-4 lead built on five buckets, one by each starter, the Potters doing basketball the way good teams do it by leaving the opponents wondering what’s going to happen next.

The Potters scored about every 30 seconds, this way: Addy Engel on a driving layup off the opening tip … Paige Selke (who delivered Milk Duds to the starving artist reporter) scored at the rim off a pass from the perimeter … Ellie VanMeenen a rhythm 3-pointer from the left side ... Izzy Hutchinson one of her sneaky little twisting kisses off the glass … and Ellie’s little (bigger) sister, Abby, a 6-foot freshman, doing what she’s going to be doing for a long time to come, grabbing a rebound and putting it back where it belonged.

“This one was fun,” the Potters coach, Bob Becker, said.

He counted the ways everything worked.

“Complete domination rebounding.”

“Gritty, tough, determined defensive plays.”

“Hold them to one-and-done, and then just go have a party at the offensive end.”

It was 30-16 at halftime, 35-25 after three quarters, and the Potters’ party became a laugher in the fourth quarter. Canton scored in the first 30 seconds and did not score again until it lucked in a 3 at the buzzer. Meanwhile, this happened, a 14-0 killing run.

Ellie VanMeenen two free throws … Engel an off-hand hook shot of a layup …little-bigger sister Abby a layup… Ellie a 3 … Abby a 3 of her own from the top of the key … Abby a mid-range beauty ... and from 35-27, the Potters were suddenly up 49-27.

A factoid: Canton scored 14 points in the second half, the VanMeenens scored 13.

“We were playing freely on offense,” Ellie said, “flowing right to our spots, everybody on the same page, talking, communicating.” As for the Sister Act, she said, “This season is really the first time we’ve played together, on travel teams or anything. I think it’s fun.” A smile here. “She might not think so.”

Let's ask.

“Yes,” Abby said, “it’s really fun getting to play with her. I‘ve always looked up to her.”

Morton, which had won at Canton 52-43 in December, is now 16-5 for the season, 7-1 in the Mid-Ilini. Canton is 15-6, 5-3.

Then, alas, it was time to get back into the great outdoors. From my place in the middle of nowhere, I had driven to the Potterdome on 150. That long, sweeping curve at Deer Creek was invisible under snow swirling off bare farmland. At the Dee-Mac intersection, I resumed breathing.

Becker, ever considerate, told me to drive safely going home.

“I could become a headline,” I said. “Like, ‘Old Sportswriter Survives Night in a Ditch by Eating Milk Duds.’”

“If you need breakfast out there,” the coach said, “I can give you a Snickers.”

It was -1 when I pulled into the garage. Casey the cat was waiting at the door. She, too, wanted a treat.

Ellie VanMeenen led Morton’s scoring with 16 (a 3-pointer in every quarter). Addy Engel had 11, Abby VanMeenen 9, Paige Selke 4, Anja Ruxlow 3, Izzy Hutchinson 2, Katie Brock 2, Julia Laufenberg 2.

“Lady Potters Stumble Against Washington: A Night of Frustration and Reflection”

January 11, 2024

Washington 45, Lady Potters 34

When I leave the house, it’s my habit to leave the TV on for Casey the cat. Maybe she will learn to cook. Tonight, when I walked in after the Potters’ game, what’s the first thing I see on the TV?

I already have suffered in seeing the poor Potters go through a very bad, let’s-flush-it night. Then my TV delivers an ensemble cast singing and dancing in a bizarre show-biz production number advertising a medicine for, I think, glucose control.

Better to tell Casey about the game.

Let’s start with turnovers. “We turned the ball over and over and over,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said. “It was our ‘turnover offense.’” He was more than disappointed. He was one click from despondent.

I could mention rebounding. “How many times did Washington miss a free throw,” the coach said, “and get the rebound?” He said it with not one question mark, but three, four or five. “How many times?????” He was more than irritated. He was one click from agitated.

Free throws? “Three for 12 tonight,” Becker said. His teams once made 75 percent of their free throws for the season. No reasons not to, nobody’s got a hand in your face. Put a blindfold on Chandler Ryan, she’d make 50 straight. Brandi Bisping would freakin’ drop-kick ‘em in. They won four state championships that way. “If I’m a kid,” Becker said, “I go to the gym in the morning and I find a way to make ‘em.” He was more than puzzled. He was one click from bewitched, bothered, and bewildered.

Becker liked what he saw in Washington. “They were tougher, grittier, feistier,” he said. It should be noted as well that Washington started not one sophomore, not two or three, not even four. They won a game for the Mid-Illini Conference lead with five sophomore starters. “Tough little scrappers,” Becker called them.

The Potters had one good stretch tonight. Down nine early in the third quarter, they went on a 9-1 run. Addy Engel began it with a layup at 3:32 of the third quarter. Ellie VanMeenen banked in a 3 (it still counted). Then Paige Selke’s 3 and an Engel free throw moved Morton within one at 25-24 late in the quarter.

After that, nothing. After that, the way good teams do it, Washington won going away. In the game’s last nine minutes, they outscored Morton, 20-10.

The killing shots were three 3-pointers by Washington’s star, Avery Tibbs, identified by Becker to his defenders as “a deadly, deadly shooter.” And yet, left mostly undefended in the deep left corner, she made three straight 3’s to give Washington a 41-27 lead with 2:01 to play. She had five 3’s tonight, 18 points (and 11 rebounds).

Morton is now 15-5 for the season, 6-1 in the Mid-Illini. Washington is 13-4, 6-0.

“What we have to decide now,” Becker said, “is what we’re going to do tomorrow to fix what’s wrong.”

The coach and his Potters may be undecided about what’s next. Not me. At this moment, I'm saying, Casey, you and me, let’s have a beer.

Addy Engel led Morton’s scoring with 12. Anja Ruxlow had 7, Ellie VanMeenen 6, Izzy Hutchinson 6, Paige Selke 3.

“Lady Potters Hold On: A Rollercoaster Victory Over Dunlap”

January 5, 2024

Lady Potters 57, Dunlap 51

Beautiful stuff, Addy Engel’s reverse layup, sliding left to right across the lane, a shot with her off-hand, her right, softly kissing the glass.

No prettier than Izzy Hutchinson’s layup 13 seconds later, down the left side of the lane, a right-handed shot in traffic with her back half-turned to the board.

This was early second quarter, the Potters up, 23-15.

The best stuff came in the third quarter. My note: “A series of FGs as good as any lately.” There were five buckets in 2 minutes, 11 seconds. There were consecutive 3’s by Hutchinson and Engel (splashes) a third by Paige Selker (rattler). Hutchinson added a mid-court steal and breakaway layup. Selke drove hard through traffic for two.

Suddenly, it was 45-26 with two minutes left in the third quarter.

Here you step on their throat.

Nope.

Here the Potters became the reverse image of the Potters who were so brave a week ago.

Then they made a fourth-quarter comeback that nearly got them the State Farm Classic championship against #1 seed Normal Community.

Tonight’s Potters, in the fourth quarter, frittered away that 19-point lead. It got to be 55-51 with 36 seconds to play.

They did it to themselves. Against Dunlap’s full-court press, the last-week-brave, tonight-discombobulated Potters made passes as poorly conceived as they were poorly executed. They went over-and-back once. They traveled once. They couldn’t get the ball in-bounds once, costing a timeout. They missed four of six free throws in the game’s last 20 seconds.

“We were fantastic in that third quarter,” Bob Becker, the Potters’ coach, said, “and it was a good thing.”

He called it a good win on the road that kept his team undefeated in the Mid-Illini Conference, 6-0 and 15-4 for the season. (Dunlap is 9-8, 3-3.)

Becker also said, “Obviously, in the fourth quarter, we were, to put it kindly, poor in handling the ball. We turned it over, inexplicably, over and over. The focus in practice Monday has to be we got to get better. We can’t just show up for practice like we did this week.”

I, for one, was happy to show up at Dunlap at all. I don’t talk to myself much, except when I walk into a room and ask myself, “Why did I come into this room?” (Happens, kids. Just wait.)

But when I drive from Morton to Dunlap, I often talk to myself. The question then is, “Where am I?”

I’ve been making that drive for 14 winters now. You go to the Grand Prairie mall and turn right. Simple, yes, and still I have often been lost and wandering out there in the dark, flat lands beyond civilization.

Tonight, I got lost sooner than usual. We were on War Memorial in Peoria – until, inexplicably, to borrow the coach's word, I noticed we were on Knoxville. The “we” includes my navigator, John Bumgarner. Celebrating yet another birthday, John was a carefree passenger right up to the moment he said, “Uh, Dave, we should be on War Memorial going the other way.”

So I did a U-turn, the 1,139th of my career, and we got to Dunlap in time to see it all. We could’ve done without that fourth quarter.

Four Potters scored in double figures. Engel had 15, Hutchinson 13, Selke 12, Ellie VanMeenen 12. Anja Ruxlow had 5.

“Heartbreak and Heroics: Lady Potters Fall Short in State Farm Holiday Classic Showdown”

December 30, 2023

Normal Community 51, Lady Potters 46

The improbable is not the same as the impossible. But it’s close. Look, over there in the deep left corner. The freshman Abby VanMeenen stands unguarded. Of course she’s alone. No one defends against a 6-foot center deep in a corner. Besides, she’s a freshman who has never put up a 3-point shot that mattered. But there she is, with the ball, alone, and now it matters.

It mattered because the Potters were about the be run out of the building. They were down a dozen, 44-32, in the first seconds of the fourth quarter. Normal Community’s defenders, long, tall, and quick, have made the team a Class 4A state championship contender, coming in on a 10-game winning streak, losers once in 17 games. They thought it was OK to let the big kid play way out there.

What VanMeenen did, left alone, was shoot the thing.

She shot it from behind the arc, way far away from a big’s safe place in the paint, way out there where the little people play. And . . .

. .. BANG!

Impossible, no. Improbable, maybe not. For in the next six minutes, Abby VanMeenen, rookie, did veterans' stuff. At 45-37, she did a spin move in the paint and banged it in off the glass. At 45-39, again. At 47-39, again.

Now it was 47-41, with 2:08 to play, and from there everything happened everywhere all at once with the vice of time closing on everyone, confusion everywhere, teenagers throwing themselves into loose-ball pileups, coaches screaming TIMEOUT!, and one reporter scribbling into his notebook. . . .

“47-43, Iz pass to AVM, LU."

Meaning Izzy Hutchinson got the ball to Abby VanMeenen for a layup. And then . .

“B says stay the course defensively. We’re going jumping and trapping. I’m OK if you get beat, but foul before they shoot.”

Meaning the Potters' coach, Bob Becker, during a timeout, cast the game as a game of seconds, moments, heartbeats even.

At 1:36, VanMeenen again. Driving into the paint. Strong. Up. Bodying into a defender. Gets the two and a free throw. The Potters were down one, 47-46. The scribbler’s note . . .

“Holy cow.”

From there, in the frenzy of a chaotic last 60 seconds, the ball changing hands twice, both teams with a chance to win the State Farm Holiday Classic, neither could get another decent shot. Normal Community closed it out with four free throws, all in the last 21 seconds.

So, a loss by five points? There was only a heartbeat of difference. Down 12 late, the story can get dark. Or not. You can fold. Or not. You can create a better story, a Vince Lombardi story. The old football coach said his Green Bay Packers never lost. Sometimes they just ran out of time to win. Works for this one, too.

It’s December, and both teams will live to play again, but winning the State Farm traditionally has been a suggestion of what can happen in March, in the state tournaments, when it’s win or go home.

“We are a great team,” Bob Becker said afterwards. He stood outside his team’s locker room. His Class 3A team had played four straight nights against 4A teams, losing by a heartbeat only to the best of them. "Our kids put it all on the line. They left it all on the floor. They’re gassed, their bodies are hurting. But they never quit, and that’s the sign of a champion.”

The Potters had won 10 straight. Now 14-4, they next play Friday at Dunlap.

Abby VanMeenen led Morton’s scoring tonight with 18, her career high. Addy Engel had 16 (and was named to the all-tournament team). Izzy Hutchinson had 4, Payton Hays 3, Katie Brock, 2, Ellie VanMeenen 2, and Anja Ruxlow 1.

“Grit and Glory: Lady Potters Edge Quincy in State Farm Holiday Classic Semifinal”

December 30, 2023

Lady Potters 42, Quincy 40 in overtime

It’s not supposed to be easy. This one wasn’t. They began it late and they kept playing forblessedever. Third quarter, it was 10:09 p.m. I asterisked a note: *YAWN. Then came, oh no, an overtime. It got to be three of four yawns into the night. Afterwards, nigh onto midnight, I asked the Potters’ senior guard, Izzy Hutchinson, “On a normal school night, would you be asleep by now?”

“No, no,” she said. She explained that a high school basketball player’s day starts just after dawn. School. After classes, two hours of basketball practice. Drags herself home for dinner. Unwinds. Time to sleep, but no. Every night, because it’s always there and it never ends, there’s homework.

“I get to bed at 1 a.m.,” Izzy said.

Some overtime games are all-night thrillers. Others are not. This was one of the others. I could write a thousand words on why that is, and they’d put you to sleep. So let’s say this. After back-to-back sensational performances put them in this semifinal of the State Farm Holiday Classic, the Lady Potters ran out of sensations.

What they had is stuff that’s not so spectacular but often more important.

“We’ve got a lot of grit,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said. Then, in one long sentence, this: “I wasn’t at my best tonight, and our team wasn’t at its best tonight, but great teams, and this is a great team, I’m not kidding, I’ve been telling you it’s building, we are a great team, and it was another sign of that tonight that when we were not at our best we did enough to win, and the great teams do that, and tonight we found a way, we made a way.”

Two nights ago, they beat the tournament’s #2 seed. This night, they beat the #3 seed. They’ve now won 10 straight, 14 of 17, and Saturday night they get a shot at #1, Normal Community, with the big trophy at stake.

Let’s cut the thousand-word essay to a couple hundred. Let’s say the Potters offense was a sputtering mess of malfunctions. Only their defense kept it close. Let’s cut to the chase, the fourth quarter, when they came from four down to take their first lead of the night, 36-34, on two Addy Engel buckets, a 3-pointer and a layup after Hutchinson knocked away a Quincy pass, chased it to the baseline, and made a sneaky little pass through a crowd in the paint to Engel, flying to join in the fun.

Ellie VanMeenen’s 3-pointer gave Morton a 39-36 lead with 4:28 to play, but a minute later Quincy made a 3 of its own, and it was 39-all going into overtime.

First possession. Engel again. As it turned out, her lightning-quick layup gave Morton a 41-39 lead that was enough to win. Up by one with 12.9 seconds to play, Hutchinson added a free throw. Quincy managed only an off-balance, awkward prayer of a shot, the prayer unanswered, and we all got to go home.

I’s now 1:21 a.m. in my house. Casey, the cat, is meowing for a snack. The old man will have a beer. Unwinding.

Engel led Morton’s scoring with 22. (“Addy’s all-tournament, all-state,” Becker said.) Hutchinson had 8 points, Abby VanMeenen 5, Ellie VanMeenen 5, Paige Selke 2.

“Dominance Defined: Lady Potters’ Triumph in State Farm Holiday Classic”

December 29, 2023

Lady Potters 54, Chicago Hyde Park 33

Suddenly, this is something. Nine straight wins. Two more and they’re the State Farm Holiday Classic champions. Who’da thunk it? We all should start thunkin’ it. Each win lately is better than the one before. I’d shout out, “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat” except I don’t know what “jumpin’ Jehoshaphat” means except Yosemite Sam used to shout it out in shock and surprise in the Saturday morning cartoons. (Oh, lord. A ‘60s TV allusion. Shoot me.)

Still, something’s going on here.

A #7 seed isn’t expected to do this to a #2. Maybe a 7 could upset a 2. But this wasn’t that. This could’ve been a running clock. This was one team better than the other in every way that matters. This was a beat-down done so convincingly that a Potter senior, Izzy Hutchinson, the everywhere-all-at-once guard, said, “This just shows that we’re better than what all the people think we are. . . . We’re kind of a silent killer.”

“We’re really good now,” freshman Paige Selke said, “and we’ll get better.”

“Our game plan was to own the paint,” senior Addy Engel said, “and we executed it perfectly.”

“I tried to not let #23 get the ball and if she did get it, not let her get to the basket,” freshman Abby VanMeenen said.

Hyde Park’s big center, #23, is a scoring and rebounding machine, 6 feet 4 inches tall. She was made to disappear by the Morton defense that gathered in the paint and pestered the girl to air-ball distraction. The team’s leading scorer, a little 3-point shooting guard, was encouraged by the Potters defense to just try it from out there, and tonight, harassed at all turns, she couldn’t drop one in the ocean from a rowboat. The Chicagoans’ famously frenetic full-court press was so full of holes found by the Potters’ precise passing that in the game’s first 3 ½ minutes, Morton ran off to a 12-0 lead.

And, I swear this to be true, the Potters chased down every bouncing-away rebound, won every wrestling match for possession, and met every physical challenge with their own bump-and-run game.

So I proposed to Bob Becker, the Potters' coach, that a certain physical toughness presented itself on full display tonight.

“Determination,” he said. “That’s what separates good teams from great teams, and we’ve got that in the making.”

That 12-0 start went like this . . .

Selke dropped in a short jumper. Engel threw in a 3-pointer and followed it with five more points. Then Hutchinson a breakaway layup.

“At the start we were terrific,” Becker said. He also said, “I love the mindset. They’re not coming in intimidated. In fact, our goal is to be the intimidator.”

Only once did Hyde Park close within 9 points, and then only for a moment. At 31-22, Ellie VanMeenen, from the top of the key, a 3. A minute later, VanMeenen another 3. Among the many champion-making things the Potters did tonight, what they did most clearly was make every loose ball theirs. About here, a Hutchinson layup scraped off the rim, got batted around and fell to the court under a scramble of bodies before reappearing in Selke’s hands 10 feet out on the right – an easy two.

Magic was happening. Next time down, unseen by everyone except Engel, who threw her the ball, Selke had materialized, wide open, in the paint, two more.

It was 42-27, a minute left in the third quarter. And here, ending all suspense, the best thing. Ellie VanMeenen, at speed, made a layup. She made it at such speed that on landing, she slid through the baseline and crashed into a padded wall, a wall not so padded, though, that the clunk of VanMeenen’s head could not be heard 10 rows up in the bleachers.

“I didn’t realize the wall was that close to the baseline,” she said later.

But, Ellie, that clunk, it didn’t seem to bother you.

“Adrenaline, I guess,” she said. “I just got up and got running.”

Next up for the Potters a semifinal game against Quincy, 8:30 Friday night at Illinois Wesleyan’s Shirk Center.

Four Potters scored in double figures tonight. Engel had 14, Ellie VanMeenen 12, Hutchinson 10, Selke 10. Anja Ruxlow had 3, Abby VanMeenen 3, and Julia Laufenberg 2.

“Morton Potters’ Commanding Victory and Team Unity Shine Bright”

December 27, 2023

Lady Potters 55, Wheaton-Warrenville 38

They were up eight when Abby VanMeenen blocked a layup. The ball landed in Addy Engel’s hands. This is what she did with it. Bye-bye. Gone. Maybe 70 feet in, what?, 10 strides. A layup at the other end. That quick. Second quarter, early, an asterisk on the note, like . . .

*Addy all the way, LU, 7:12.

Then the best part happened. Not that we could hear it from the other end of the gymnasium, but Addy Engel allowed herself a moment. She shouted at the ceiling. A roar? Maybe a laugh. Let’s call it one of those holycowlookwhatwejustdid moments that winners enjoy so much.

Next thing anyone knew, the Potters had gone off on a 15-3 run in 6 ½ minutes that served as advance notice of a 15-0 run in the first 7 ½ minutes of the third quarter en route to a 48-21 lead. This against a Class 4A team with an 8-6 record.,

Nighty-night, as Steph Curry would say.

Or, to quote Addy Engel, “It was really fun.”

Even better, the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, framed it in an historic sense. This team reminds him of moments in the last decade when the Potters won four state championships in five seasons: “They have what our great teams had, that connectedness where they’re excited for each other’s success.”

It was the Potters’ best performance of the season. Defensively, they gave the Wheatons no room; 5 of the losers' first 7 field goals were 3-pointers, largely because Morton’s mix of hustling, aggressive defenses kept them outside the 3-point arc.

Offensively, the Potters attacked relentlessly; each of their starters – Engel, Ellie VanMeenen, Abby VanMeenen, Paige Selke, Izzy Hutchinson – scored in the first quarter.

“We were completely dominant for three quarters,” Becker said, and then the bench got to join in on the laughter.

Their eighth straight victory and 12th in 15 games sent the #7 seeded Potters into a quarter-final game of the State Farm Holiday Classic. At 7 p.m. Thursday night, they play the #2 seed, Chicago Hyde Park, their toughest competition since a loss to Lincoln a month ago.

Engel led the scoring with 19, Ellie VanMeenen had 17. Anja Ruxlow had 6, Izzy Hutchinson 5, Paige Selke 5, Abby VanMeenen 3.

“Pink Hair and Potter Dominance: A Colorful Victory Story”

December 21, 2023

Lady Potters 64, Manual 17

So it was 40-9 when Addy Engel moved quickly to mid-court and launched a shot from 45 feet hoping to beat the buzzer at halftime. Even as the ball was in the air, I, for one, thought, “Huh?”

There were eight seconds left. Time enough for a layup. Time enough to go to Jimmy John’s and come back with a ham sandwich and a Coke.

“I had heard those guys go ‘3, 2, 1, shoot it’ when Manual came down,” Engel said.

Those guys were five Potters fans on the first row at courtside. Pale facsimile that they were, they yet were reminders of the raucous Bobby’s Boys claque that added teen-boy drama to the Potters state championship years of ’15, ’16, ’17, ’19.

Engel figured the 3-2-1-shoot-it chant was designed to mislead Manual’s shooters. Still, when the ball came to her, she said, "I thought the buzzer must be about to go off.”

Instead, her shot clanged high off the backboard, was batted around for a while, and then, as her embarrassment morphed into self-conscious laughter (for what else is a girl to do in such a moment?), it was then and only then, at last, finally, came the happy sound of the buzzer.

“When it didn’t go off,” Engel said, “I looked up and saw there were four seconds to go.”

Well, things happen, y’know? And nice that it happened with the Potters rolling. They moved to 11-3 for the season and take a seven-game winning streak into next week’s State Farm Holiday Classic. Their coach, Bob Becker, was well pleased.

“Obviously, we had challenging games up front,” he said. The allusion was to early-season losses to the region’s best teams (Peoria High, Peoria Notre Dame, Lincoln). “But our girls handled it with the right mindset, and we’re growing from it. . . .Our prospects are pretty promising.”

There’s not much else to say about this game other than one team knew how to play basketball and the other team, now 3-9 for the season….

. . . had a girl with pink hair.

The first time she appeared in my notes, it was about her look. She was #30 for Manual, a 5-foot-6 junior guard, Cameeya Wade. From my seat in the bleachers, I scooched over to Maria Lopko, a Potter alum home for Christmas. I said, “Maria! That pink hair . . . ?”

My fashion consultant said, “A wig, yes.”

Five minutes in, Cameeya Wade, who would turn out to be a charming interview, had taken three shots. Put up under defensive pressure by good defenders, all three shots became airballs, the most noteworthy a 10-footer that seemed destined to scrape the girders way up there, a rocket rising into the atmosphere only to fizzle alarmingly and fall to earth near Cameeya’s feet.

Naturally, I sought out Cameeya afterwards. As an even younger man, I had interviewed Muhammad Ali, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Charlize Theron, seven U.S. Senators, Stan Musial, and a Louisville taxi driver who kept her pony in the back seat. Now it was time to speak to a girls high school basketball player about her pink wig.

“The wig, Cameeya,” I said, “do you have other wigs?”

“A green one,” she said.

“Green?” a man said, that man me, me remembering that Ali, near 40, told me he had dyed his sideburns to get rid of the gray, me remembering a morning when Howard Cosell appeared in his kitchen in his underwear and without his toupee, a sight burned into these eyes forever.

“A black one,” Cameeya said. “And burgundy, and blonde, and this one, the pink.”

“Why,” I said, “the pink tonight?”

“The pink is my prettiest,” she said.

I have no hairdo reports on the Potters. I do have the scoring. Ellie VanMeenen led with 17, all in the first half. Engel had 14, Anja Ruxlow 7, Paige Selke 6, Abby VanMeenen 6, Payton Hays 5, Izzy Hutchinson 4, Emelia Miller 3, Julia Laufenberg 2.

“Potters Shine: Dominating Victory Over East Peoria”

December 19, 2023

Lady Potters 64, East Peoria 42

Once upon a time in my younger days, I got sideways with the East Peoria folks by committing sentences that among other things described their popcorn as too salty in those skinny dollar sacks that cost a dollar too much. Now, all grown up, I have learned to behave myself. Tonight, I come to praise this season’s Raiders.

For the first time in a decade, they were good enough to catch Bob Becker’s attention. The Potters’ coach had seen them lead Mid-Illini favorite Washington by a point after a quarter. They were up on a solid Limestone team at the half. They have a little guard who can score 20 or 25 on you. They had started the season with three straight victories, and when had that ever happened?

So Becker made a strong pre-game suggestion to his Potters.

“We had a goal,” senior captain Addy Engel said, “of keeping Kylie to zero.”

Kyle Moeller is that little guard in question, a 5-foot-4 dynamo who can throw it in from everywhere.

“We did that in the first half,” Engel said.

By then it was 31-13, and Moeller’s 10 points, seven of them in the fourth quarter, meant nothing. The Potters had won their sixth straight game, their ninth in 10 games, and while it’s too soon to be definite about anything, it’s almost/kind of/sorta okay to say that the Potters, on a really good night, can beat most anybody.

We’re near halfway in the regular season, and the Potters are 10-3 with victories over everyone they should have beaten and with losses only to the best teams they’re likely to play before the state tournaments begin.

I, for one, saw that happy future tonight. I saw it in the Potters’ starting lineup. The five were seniors Engel and Izzy Hutchinson, junior Ellie VanMeenen, and freshmen Abby VanMeenen and Paige Selke.

Though they have often played together, I believe it was their first start together. On offense, they bring size, strength, and speed. Defensively, they’re quick, relentless, and mobile enough to play man-to-man, 2-3 zone, box-and-zone, 1-3-1, whatever junk works.

The first six minutes decided it. It was 15-4. Most of the scoring came on a 10-3 run that started with an Abby VanMeenen layup in front of a Hutchinson free throw. Engel followed with a rebound bucket and a 3-pointer. Paige Selke finished it off with a beautiful reverse layup.

"We wanted to come out and never even let them have a thought they could win," Engel said.

Yes, stamping the game as theirs before East Peoria knew it had started, four Potters had scored. Better, they made Kylie Moeller disappear. Out front, Hutchinson and Ellie VanMeenen either collapsed on her themselves or drove her into traps along the sidelines. At the quarter, Morton 19-7.

Morton is now 5-0 in Mid-Illini play. East Peoria, 4-11 overall, is 0-5 in the conference.

Engel led Morton’s scoring with 14. Abby VanMeenen had 13, Selke 10, Ellie VanMeenen 9, Payton Hays 6, Anja Ruxlow 4, Julia Laufenberg 3, Katie Brock 2, Abby Brooks 2, Hutchinson 1.

“Potters Extend Winning Streak with Victory Over Limestone”

December 16, 2023

Lady Potters 60, Limestone 43

She attacked the basket, because that’s what Izzy Hutchinson does. When the shot late in the game came off the glass, she attacked for the rebound, because of course she did. She twisted an ankle and fell. On her back, she saw Limestone going the other way. She got up, limping, and beat the ball to the other end, because of course she did.

What happened at the other end, I have no idea. Just watching Izzy Hutchinson all night had long since worn me out.

Later, Bob Becker, the Potters' coach, talked about his team. “We competed extremely hard tonight. We were just relentless on offensive rebounding, getting second chances, attacking and getting to the free throw line, 20 of 29 I think we were.”

He might have said all that about Hutchinson, a 5-foot-8 senior guard. In the first quarter, she had eight points, a layup and six straight free throws. She had been relentless in the paint, creating a way to the rim where none previously existed, because of course she did. Her motor never idles, and it was running hot when she put the game away early in the third quarter.

The Potters led, 33-22. Limestone clung to hope. But at 4:50 of the third, Hutchinson turned a lazy Limestone pass at mid-court into a break-away bucket. Next time she had the ball, flying downcourt, she slowed up in the lane to do a Patrick Mahomes handoff to Addy Engel arriving a step later.

That made it 37-22 and I counted it over, because of course it was. No way the Potters, now 9-3 and on a five-game winning streak, would contrive to lose from 15 up to a 4-9 team that has lost games by 34 and 50 points. The Potters are now 4-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference, Limestone is 1-3.

Here’s persuasive evidence of the Potters dominance tonight. They began every quarter on a scoring run. They went 7-0 in the first, then 8-1, 8-0, and 10-3 in the fourth. That’s 33-4. Good teams do that. Here are rarer numbers: Morton had more offensive tebounds (17) than Limestone had on defense (15).

If you were wondering, as I was, about the Potters generous use of their bench tonight, here’s how Izzy Hutchinson explained it:

“In practice this week, Coach said a deflection in practice is a turnover in a game. In the game, if you make a mistake, a turnover, anything, if that happens, no matter who you are, the first sub off the bench who gets to the scoring table, replaces you. It’s to kind of hold people accountable.”

A smile here.

“It worked really well for us tonight.”

Bob Becker said, “Turnovers . . . .”

The coach, in his 25th season, put a veteran's curled-lip spin on that word, turnovers, as if speaking of a reptile, the evil yellow-bellied turnover, poisonous to all basketball coaches. I was not surprised to hear him go on.

“Turnovers can drive me personally insane,” he said. “They can make me angry, upset, and probably not the most positive human being.” (Morton 12 turnovers, Limedtone 22)

So it was fine by him that his bench players rushed to replace people making turnovers.

“Whoever gets there first, plays,” he said.

Engel led the Potters with 18 points, 7 rebounds. Hutchinson had 15 and 9. Ellie VanMeenen scored 9, Paige Selke 8, Payton Hays 5, Abby VanMeenen 2, Katie Brock 2, Anja Ruxlow 1.

“Potters Rally in Second Half to Secure Win Over Pekin”

December 12, 2023

Lady Potters 45, Pekin 22

At the half, it was 17-15, Morton. To give you an idea of how exciting it wasn’t, Pekin scored 6 points in the first quarter, Morton 4 in the second. Had I had brought along reading material – yes, the L.L. Bean Christmas catalogue – I would have ordered new duck hunting gear, though I’ve never been duck hunting in my whole entire life.

Page 38 of the catalogue advertised Bean Boots, lined with flannel, $219.

Wait.

$219, for boots with pajamas in ‘em?

Anyway, praise be, there came a halftime intermission during which game-changing decisions were made that allowed first-half transgressions to be redeemed by second-half good works.

I mean, after starting 1-for-11 on 3-point tries, in the second half the Potters tried three 3’s, making none, as in none, nada, zero, one fewer than one. Instead, they made 14 field goals, all from point-blank range, a dozen layups and two rebound put-backs. “Attacking the basket,” to quote the Potters coach, Bob Becker, they won the second half, 28-7.

I hurry to say that not all “layups” are alike. Thinking here of an Izzy Hutchinson “layup” that comes at the end of a long, long, long sprinter’s stride around defenders that takes her to a place where she can sneak the ball over the rim. Thinking here of an Ellie VanMeenen “layup” as the exclamation point on a sentence that begins way out there beyond the arc and winds it way to conclusion in the paint.

All that, and more, now thinking of successive Addy Engel field goals on a night she scored 14 points, all on “layups.”

The first came when she crashed into a Pekin defender, did not say excuse me, and with her left hand, her natural hand, put the ball off the board.

The second “layup” was a beauty, a wonder to behold, and more pleasing to these eyes than any of a thousand thunderous dunks by big boys with no imagination.

What Engel did was drive down the left side of the lane. At speed, she rose off her right foot. If not fully turned away from the hoop, she was most the way turned. Then, with her right hand, her off-hand, she flipped the ball back over her head and against the glass. Two points the hard way, a “layup” that, if the rulesmakers had any sense, should have been worth three.

Could she even see the rim?

"Kind of," she said, "for a second."

“I didn’t teach her that,” Becker said. “If I tried that, I’d hurt myself.”

The coach declared it a good night, half of it anyway. “We were dominant. Much more purposeful at both ends in the second half.” Then he raised the stakes to capital letters. “We were DOMINANT in the paint.”

With a fourth straight victory and seventh in eight games, the Potters are 8-3 oversll (with three home games to play before Christmas) and 3-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference. Though Pekin is now 2-6 for the season, it had been competitive against good teams, losing by 11 to Class 4A power Normal Community and by 13 to Mid-Illini contender Dunlap.

Engel’s 14 led Morton’s scoring. Freshman Paige Selke, making the first start of her career, had 13. Ellie VanMeenen scored 8, sister Abby had 4, Hutchinson 3, and Magda Lopko 3.

“Resilience Leads Lady Potters to Victory”

December 9, 2023

Lady Potters 46, Macomb 26

Ellie VanMeenen ker-RASHED to the floor. She’d gone up for a 3-pointer from the left side. Fouled, she fell backwards. From across the way, we heard a CLUNK. Me, I would need an ambulance. Not VanMeenen.

She is 16 years old. With the wonderful invulnerability of youth, VanMeenen bounced up and made all the Potters feel better. She made her three points the hard way, three free throws, nothing but net each time.

The game’s first 24 minutes, she scored three points. The first two minutes of the fourth quarter, she scored eight. Two and a half minutes later, the Potters completed a 17-1 run for a 44-22 lead.

Until then, the Potters had been soporific. Maybe the hour-and-so bus ride north and west to Abingdon mellowed ‘em out. Maybe the sounds of silence in Abingdon’s little gym did it. Maybe no one much cared about the Abingdon/Avon Shootout with 16 anonymous teams playing eight games from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Well, we know Peoria Notre Dame too well.)

This much is certain. The Potters aren’t where they want to be. They want to be Class 3A state tournament contenders. Macomb is a Class 2A team with no size and no strength that had lost seven of 11 games, including one this week by 46 points.

Against that team, the Potters scored 11 points in the first quarter, 13 in the second, and THREE in the third. Scoring 19 in the fourth made it a runaway, and the Potters won’t throw back the W, their sixth in the last seven games, those by an average of 21 points a game.

And yet . . .

“We weren’t with it for three quarters of the game,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said.

Truth is, no one was much with it. No buzz in the neat little gym. One team represented two villages with a combined population of 336.

“Like, the gym empty,” VanMeenen said.

Addy Engel, a senior captain and the Potters’ leading scorer, said there’s a fix for the not-with-it, empty-gym problem.

“We have to create the energy ourselves,” she said. “We have to create it on the court and on the bench.”

Now 7-3 for the season, the Potters next play at Pekin, a 5:30 p.m. game with the Morton-Pekin boys' teams following.

Engel led the scoring today with 18 (11 in the second quarter). Ellie VanMeenen had 13 (10 in the fourth). Abby VanMeenen and Paige Selke had 4 each, Anja Ruxlow 3, Izzy Hutchinson 2, and Magda Lopko 2.

“A Night of Unity: Lady Potters Triumph Against Metamora”

December 5, 2023

Lady Potters 56, Metamora 35

Emelia Miller’s 3-point try from the right corner was beautiful. It had the kind of perfect shooter’s spin Steph Curry puts on ‘em. Emelia’s try was not an important shot in any way except in every way. The game was a rout when Emelia’s beauty went up. Goes in, great. Doesn’t go in, great.

Great either way, for on this night, every Potter had a hand in that shot. Every Potter on the bench rose up to see it. They wanted it for Emelia, a senior who maybe has scored once this season, who plays only briefly, who may be the 9th player in sometimes, or maybe she’s the 12th, but who’s counting?

Somehow, and don’t ask me how, but somehow, and I know it to be true, because, hey, I was a young man when I started watching these Lady Potters teams, a very young man, and now I’m a great-grandfather (twice), and I know this to be true. Somehow, from the stars to the 9th, 10th, 15th girl on the bench, they all believe in the sisterhood of Potters.

So when Emelia’s 3-pointer was in the air, even a great-grandfather rooted for that beauty to go in, just to hear the roof-raising racket the other Potters leaping in celebration would create. Yes, there’ll be a time for an Emelia Miller 3, but the time was not tonight, not that it mattered, for on this night, Emelia’s mother, Rachel, stood at midcourt afterwards, tears in her eyes, a stone in her hands.

The stone was carved by the grandfather of Emelia’s teammates, Ellie and Abby VanMennen. You see the picture here. You see Rachel smiling through her tears. Her husband, Emelia’s father, died a summer ago, 49 years old, cancer, and the grief is still in her. The Potters players, on their own, raised money for the Illinois Cancer Fund. Tonight they warmed up in green T-shirts bearing the legend, “TEAM MILLER.”

Holding the stone, Rachel Miller said, “The girls really supported Emelia through this.” She stopped to breathe. “They really are Emelia’s rock.”

Emelia, there by her mother, was all smiles.

Such a night it was.

She said, “I have the best teammates in the world.”

I have a rule of sportswriting. If the game is really not much of a game, find something else to say. And if the something else turns out to be a rock, write about the rock, which is, after all, the perfect symbol for what Magda Lopko said about the night. Magda Lopko is a senior, maybe 8th on the bench some nights, and she said the team had wanted to acknowledge the Millers’ loss last season. But it was too soon.

So they waited for tonight. “Winning is fun,” Lopko said. “But getting your sisters together is the best part of all.”

The basketball. Oh, yes, The basketball. “A tale of two halves,” the coach, Bob Becker, said, proving he was once an aspiring sportswriter. First half, Morton’s motion offense was mostly wasted motion, with lots of cutting and almost no passing. The Potters led at halftime, 19-15, and a great-grandfather, for one, thought of the nap he had missed earlier that day.

It was 26-20 when the Potters woke up. In the next minute and one second, they went on a 9-0 run: a Paige Selke 3, a three-point drive by Izzy Hutchinson, and an Anja Ruxlow 3 from the left corner that caused Becker to fist-bump assistant coach Dakota Neisen in celebration of, at last, a play that worked the way it was drawn up.

From there, no contest. The lead grew to 51-27 in exactly 8 minutes.

“We had good energy tonight, on the court and on the bench,” senior captain Addy Engel said. “We’re in a good spot now.”

Morton now begins a stretch of five games against undistinguished teams. Becker said. “We want to win out going into the State Farm tournament.” That tournament begins Dec. 27.

Morton is now 6-3, 2-0 in Mid-Illini play. Metamora is 2-7, 0-2.

Hutchinson and Engel led the Potters’ scoring with 13 apiece. Ellie VanMeenen and Ruxlow had 10 each, Selke and Payton Hays 5 each.