Potters’ Grit Prevails in Hard-Fought Victory Over Manual

December 7, 2024
Lady Potters 51
Peoria Manual 47
Happily, during the jayvee game, I got a text message that kept me occupied for much of the second half, or, having been witness to the first half, I might have sworn off basketball for a century or so. The Peorians’ defense was of the hack-and-claw variety. Their offense was throw the rock in the air and hope. "Goodgawdamighty,” Adolph Rupp, the great Kentucky coach born in the 19th century, said to me in a text. (I wish.) I am forbidden by a sense of decency to speak of the purblind referees.
So, before the varsity game, I scribbled a note on the Morton side of my notebook: “Better leave nothing to chance.”
And yet, having allowed Manual a 9-0 run early in the third quarter, the Potters found themselves behind, 29-27, in Manual’s gym, in front of a few hundred raucous Manual fans. Not only that, Morton seemed to have no answer for any of Manual’s frenzied imitations of basketball at either end of the court.
Oh, forgive me, please, but I hate it when I go to a basketball game and rugby breaks out. (Count 'em: 37 turnovers, 36 fouls.) Small wonder, after the game, that Morton’s very good sophomore, Paige Selke, was puzzled by my question. She had 24 points, scoring from everywhere this side of the popcorn stand. So we talked. Better to say, I made a word salad of a question.
“You all played so smoothly the other night, then tonight, y’know, (me, mumbling) it was like hack, hack, hack, chop, stop-go, stop-go, everybody getting shoved around, not even, really, basketball. What was it like for you out there?”
Reporters, young and ancient, are happy to have athletes provide intelligent answers to dumb questions. Paige Selke, bless her, said, “In games like this, with a lot of people getting hammered physically, you have to be there for each other, pick up each other, and just keep pushing.”
Keep pushing, they did. The Potters came from behind four times in the last quarter and a half to win this one. They did it the last two times with Selke scoring five of her 10 fourth-quarter points. Down 41-40 with 5:35 to play. Selke put up a high-arcing 3-pointer that became a nothing-but-net beauty. It pushed the Potters ahead, 43-41 at 4:47. Two minutes later, her layup gave Morton the lead for good, 46-44.
They were there for each other, as Selke said, and at no time was help more meaningful than with 1:18 to play. The Potters’ Julia Laufenberg, in the game to play defense, played it so well that she stuffed a Peorian’s layup try to preserve a 46-45 lead.
Then, at the other end a half-minute later, Laufenberg broke open in the lane and took a pass from Payton Hays for a layup and a 48-45 lead with 43 seconds to play.
“Everything didn’t go well for us tonight,” she said, “but to be able to overcome it . . .”
She didn’t finish that sentence, but its meaning was made clear by coach Bob Becker’s remarks later.
“As much as we want winning to be easy, winning is hard,” he said. “We had a highlight reel the other night (a running-clock victory over Lincoln), and this one was ugly for the most part. . . .The big thing out of this game was just toughness, mental and physical toughness. Holy cow, Julia Laufenberg, diving for balls, she was playing gritty, tough, championship-level basketball. She was competing.” The coach put an italics spin on that last word, as if it were a word to live by, which for his teams it is.
Here's competing: in the fourth quarter, the Potters were 6 for 7 on field goals, 4 for 5 on free throws -- two misses in eight hectic, decisive minutes. The losers were 4-11, 6-10 = 11 misses.
Morton, now 5-1 for the season, plays Metamora on Friday night at Illinois Wesleyan’s Shirk Center, the opener of an event in which both the Morton girls’ and boys’ teams play on the same court the same night.
Morton scoring tonight: Selke 24 (and 9 rebounds), Ellie VanMeenen 9, Abby VanMeenen 7, Laufenberg 7, Katie Brock 2, Penelope Drake 2.

Last-Second Magic: Pleasant Plains Stuns Lady Potters in Overtime

December 3, 2024
Pleasant Plains 49
Lady Potters 47
In overtime. An in-bounds play with :00.9 to play. A bounce pass, a layup.
There is no way to win with 9/10th of a second to play because there is no way to throw a pass, catch it, and shoot it in 9/10ths of a second – unless . . .
… . your in-bounds passer can practically hand it to somebody directly under the basket, which of course can never be done unless . . .
. . . your in-bounds passer is herself directly under the basket, a step out of bounds, and she drops a bounce pass to her biggest teammate coming off a screen into the painted area, which of course can never happen because . . .
. . . the other team won’t let that happen, no no, they won’t, because they stack three or four defenders in the paint and force the other team to throw a pass to a shooter outside, and that shooter, knowing that time is disappearing like a sudden breath, will squeeze off a shot that clangs loudly ….
Well. Stuff happens. And Pleasant Plains’ only big, a 6-foot junior, Anna Weber, took the bounce pass up, off the board, in, buzzer, game over.
In such games it’s possible to find a dozen ways the loser might have won. All you need know is that the Potters had a six-point lead with 3:12 left in the third quarter. At such a moment, the best teams step on the poor suckers’ throats. Instead, Pleasant Plains outscored Morton, 11-0, in those three minutes and 12 seconds to take a lead they never lost. The plains people had some luck in there. They made three 3’s, the last banked in from 22 feet at :08. It's also best to remember, winners make their luck.
"In the end," Bob Becker, the Potters' coach, said,"it doesn't come down to one play. Our ball handling, our rebounding needed to be better."
Pleasant Plains is a Class 2A team with a 4-3 record that I, for one, had never heard of until it showed up on the Potters’ schedule last month. It’s southwest of Springfield somewhere, and if not in the middle of nowhere, it’s for sure on nowhere’s edge. The town is 800 people, the school has 406 students. (Must be some school districts combining there.) Morton is 17,117 with almost a thousand students, not to mention four Class 3A state championships, a 26-6 record last season, and has good reason this season to hope for more of all that. The Potters were 3-0 before that last shot tonight. They get back on the horse Wednesday night in Lincoln. (Edit - Friday at Canton)
Morton scoring tonight: Paige Selke 16, Ellie VanMeenen 14, Abby VanMeenen 7, Abby Brooks 7 (including a layup and a 3 that brought Morton from 45-40 down to 45-all at 2:05 of regulation), Julia Laufenberg 3.

No Need for Alarm…Lady Potters Dominate Lincoln 60-25 in Convincing Win

November 29, 2024
Lady Potters 60
Lincoln 25
And it was never close, not even after sirens and flashing lights went off in the Potterdome and a man on the p.a. said the commotion was either a false alarm or we should gather our possessions and hold our loved ones close because we might have to evacuate the building. Well, maybe not all of that, but I did hear the word “evacuate.”
Only four minutes into the night’s entertainment, Morton led, 12-2. Then, for five minutes of real-world time, the ear-piercing noise (a child in front of me covered her ears) and the bright blink-blink-blinking lights suggested calamity coming. Meanwhile, school-building folks searched for the problem.
I had been there before. I could look it up in the archives. But it is late tonight and Casey the Cat says hurry up, bobo, and serve the salmon pate, with fresh water, if you will. Anyway, once upon a time, there was smoke in the Potterdome that was traced to the popcorn machine in the lobby.
So history does repeat itself. Finally, the all-clear signal came. It was again safe to be in a gymnasium that is attached to a $7 million construction project. I asked a school official what happened, and the school official, using technical language the way school officials do, explained the problem. He said, “The popcorn machine went on the fritz.”
For three minutes and 18 seconds of game time, the Potters themselves went on the fritz, going scoreless while allowing Lincoln two points. But from 12-4, Morton did a series of fritzless blitzes. A 10-1 run preceded a 20-2 sprint. At 2:02 of the third quarter, it was Morton 42, Lincoln 13.
“They were stuck on 13 for an awful long time,” Bob Becker, the Potters coach, said.
Lincoln scored its 12th point at 1:24 of the second quarter. It scored its 13th at 2:44 of the third. That’s 6:40 on the clock. A long time.
All those numbers say the Potters were much the better team. (Not that Potter fans should be giddy. It is true that Lincoln is the defending state 3A champion. True, the Railsplitters had won 75 of 76 games the previous two seasons. True, they did it with a starting five of girls who had been beautifully synchronized from the fourth grade on. Also true, but sad for the Railers, those girls have graduated and Lincoln is now 0-2 this season.)
What’s inside the numbers is more important for Morton than tonight’s domination that raised its record to 3-0. The Potters were effectively aggressive at both ends, which Becker saw as valuable for a team dealing with a scheduling quirk. Because Morton’s annual Thanksgiving tournament fell apart – only Lincoln of four schools honored its contract by coming to town – the Potters will play their next 11 games on the road, not returning home until January 3 against Chatham-Glenwood.
“Thinking ahead,” Becker said, “we won’t be in the Potterdome again for over a month. Things like defense, rebounding, getting on the floor after the ball, gritty hustle plays – all that will travel on the road. Good things will happen. This is unique for this year’s team. I think they’ll embrace it. They’ll rise to the challenge of being road warriors.”
Tonight’s game was a different challenge. Lincoln had beaten Morton three straight times, twice a year ago, last with a running clock. The Potters won this one with work that might be summarized in two words: Ellie VanMeenen.
The senior captain scored six points, one a three-pointer with the game 24 seconds old and another in the last minute of the third quarter (with seven misses in-between). VanMeenen did all the other good stuff that Becker loves: relentless pressure on defense, diving onto loose balls, finding the open man with a pass downcourt, moving the ball in the offense. She led the Potters in rebounds (7), assists (5), and steals (3).
“I wish a couple more of those had gone in,” she said. “But at the end of the day, it’s about whether we win or not and how we’re playing as a team. I think we played great tonight.”
Becker, a shooter himself once upon a long time ago, said, “Shooting runs hot and cold. We want Ellie to take those shots. She’s earned it. Some night soon, she’ll make 8 of those.”
Morton plays Monday at Pleasant Plains, which is somewhere down there past Springfield. Road warriors, the man said.
Tonight’s Potters scoring: Paige Selke 17, Abby VanMeenen 10, Julia Laufenberg 7, Ellie VanMeenen 6, Katie Brock 6, Anja Ruxlow 5, Abby Brooks 3, Payton Hays 3, Penelope Brand 3. (Eight Potters made 3’s, total of 11 3’s.)

Lady Potters Secure Strong Road Win, 60-32, Over Rock Island

November 21, 2024
Lady Potters 60
Rock Island 32
I missed this trip to Rock Island’s historic if antique gym for good reason. (Check in the comments.)
It would’ve been fun, according to my far flung correspondents who reported the Potters were aggressive at both ends to earn a second victory opening the 2024-25 season.
With his team in foul trouble early, coach Bob Becker moved the Potters into a 2-3 zone. Then, he said, “We settled in and played well mostly. Coming home with a running-clock solid road win. A few areas to improve upon but nothing alarming.”
Paige Selke led the Potters scoring with 20, Ellie VanMeenen had 19, Abby VanMeenen 10. Anja Ruxlow, Abby Brooks, and Penelope Brand each had 3, Julia Laufenberg 2.
Next up, at the Potterdome on the Friday after Thanksgiving, will be Lincoln, the defending 3A state champions, twice winners over Morton last season.

Lady Potters Make Statement in Season Opener with 83-9 Blowout of Peoria High

November 19, 2024
Lady Potters 83
Peoria High 9
Paige Selke, a sophomore, remembered the start of her Morton High School basketball career a year ago. A very good Peoria High team, coming off a Final Four appearance, jumped out to an 8-0 lead in two minutes and held on for a seven-point victory.
“They landed the first punch,” Selke said tonight.
She smiled.
“Tonight,” she said, “we landed the first punch.”
Whoa, Nellie, did they ever. In its season opener, Morton landed the first, second, seventh and umpteenth punch. Soon enough, the very good Potters had built a 21-0 lead that at halftime was 55-1.
I will spare you the details, save for a moment that surprised even seasoned observers. A Peoria girl, hurrying along on the dribble, caused the basketball to bounce over her head and, unsure of what to do next, she caught the thing on its way down and ran three of four steps with it before resuming the dribble. She stopped only on hearing a whistle. I believe she had committed the rarely seen violation of traveling while double-dribbling.
Anyway, the Lady Potters coach, Bob Becker, was well pleased with his team’s performance after 12 days of practice, especially the part, he said, where “we got out and ran.” Of their 20 first-half field goals, 18 came on breakaways and rebounds of breakaway shots missed. Whether the Potters can do that kind of work against good teams will be determined in the next month; still, very good teams are supposed to beat very bad teams badly. That, the Potters did.
The Potters scoring: Selke 24 (a career high), Ellie VanMeenen 17, Abby VanMeenen 13, Julia Laufenberg 9, Katie Brock 5, Jorja Farrell 5, Claire Ceresa 4, Abby Brooks 3, Anja Ruxlow 2, Bennett Swearingen 1.
Thursday the Potters travel to Rock Island.

“Lincoln Defeats Lady Potters in Sectional Championship, Ending Memorable Season”

February 22, 2024
Lincoln 61, Lady Potters 30

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That, they did.

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

“Lady Potters Prevail Against Washington, Set Sights on Lincoln Showdown”

February 20, 2024
Lady Potters 40, Washington 34

Bless ‘em, those Morton High School students who rocked the place tonight during the East Peoria sectional semifinal game. But, really, c’mon, kids.

With 30 seconds to play, eager to get on with it, they started serenading the Washingtonians, singing them to sleep, singing, “La da dada…gooood night.”

What? The Potters were up six with 30 seconds to play. Thirty seconds tonight was an eternity. Up by six and the Potters’ Izzy Hutchinson missed a free throw, meaning it's scary to realize that Washington might throw in a quick 3 and it’s a 3-point, your-life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing.

But wait. Yes, Izzy missed. The ball came off the right side, and from the middle slot along the lane, the left side, with the ball in the air, here came . . . flying … Julia Laufenberg!

The second Potter off the bench tonight, she played good minutes of relentless defense against Washington’s best shooter. Julia Laufenberg! Long, tall, Julia! She took a rebound that logically belonged to Washington And Julia of all people, grabbing an offensive rebound off a free throw, crouched low around a defender to bounce it out to the littlest Potter, Katie Brock, almost unseen among the bigs. She moved it Ellie VanMeenen.

Don’t you love it? Julia made a little play that if it didn’t win a big game, it at least made it possible to breathe again. Seven seconds later, Ellie V made a free throw for a 39-32 lead, up SEVEN points, a three-possession game, and it was time to think about Thursday night because . . .

. . . at last, Bob Becker gets what he has wanted.

On Nov. 25, Lincoln defeated the Potters, 66-50, to win Morton’s Thanksgiving tournament.

“It’s been kind of a goal of ours,” the Potters’ coach said, “to have another crack at Lincoln.”

Lincoln is 34-0 this season. It was 36-1 last season. It won its semifinal at East Peoria tonight, leaving Kankakee a hopeless mess, 64-28. Lincoln has won 30 running-clock games this season.

“Hopefully,” Becker said of Thursday night’s sectional championship game, “it won’t be a running clock, not a laugher . . .”

To hear that, you might think the Potters were a rag-tag gaggle of intramural stragglers when in fact they are the Mid-Illini Conference champions, have won 11 straight games, 22 of 24, are 26-5 overall, are ranked #2 in Class 3A, and are within reach of the program’s eighth sectional championship in 10 years, with a fifth state championship out there somewhere. Tonight they jumped out to an early 16-4 lead en route to a second victory in three tries this season with Washington.

The coach went on. “ . . . and hopefully we can hunt down one more Thursday night.”

All those hopefully’s hide the truth that these Potters are winning all those games the very hardest way – winning in the paint with rebounding and defense. It ain’t pretty. “Grit and toughness” is Becker’s mantra of the moment. But a W is a W is a W.

Becker's team had 10 field goals tonight, 8 layups, all on slashing drives to the bucket that also produced 18 free-throw points. In contrast, Washington’s 11 field goals included 4 3’s and only 7 free throws. Seven times now in the 11-game streak, Morton has held opponents under 40 points; it has given up no more than 42.

So, what about Lincoln?

“They’re beatable,” senior co-captain Addy Engel said. “We know who we got to stop. Their offense runs through (Kloe) Froebe (Lincoln’s all-state guard). I’m confident our coaches will come up with a good game plan. We’ll have to execute it.”

I am of two minds. Morton can win if it plays exceedingly well at both ends. Lincoln, #1 in 3A, can win if it plays the way it has played for two years now.

I asked Hutchinson about Lincoln.

“If we take away Froebe and that #4 (Becca Heitzig), we got a chance,” she said.

I am a Morton boy-reporter who grew up in his grandmother’s Lincoln tavern.

“I’m hoping for a five-overtime game,” I said.

Izzy laughed. “That’d be really cool.”

Morton’s scoring tonight: Hutchinson 9 (6 of 8 free throws in the last 3 minutes), Abby VanMeenen 9, Engel 8, Ellie V 8, Payton Hays 2, Katie Brock 2, Paige Selke 2.

“Lady Potters Clinch Regional Championship with Gritty Win Over Galesburg”

February 15, 2024
Lady Potters 41, Galesburg 29

Imagine Bob Becker, the Lady Potters coach, as a movie-thriller Tom Cruise save-the-world guy. He has found the mega-atomic bomb. He must defuse it. Seconds are draining away . . . 10 9 8 . . . Should he clip the red wire or the black one? . . . 7 6 5 . . . ohmigod, Bob, which wire?

This one was kinda like that.

You dare not look away, you might miss a crisis. Blinking is bad because five things can happen before you get your eyelashes untangled. Breathe? You’re thinking of breathing? Now? Who breathes during this? This was a defensive classic, every possession contested, every rebound a hand-to-hand war, every possession a precious gem, even a diamond to be cut into its most valuable shape, a memory.

With the regional championship as reward for victory, Morton never trailed and yet was never certain to win. Up by 13 early in the third quarter, the Potters were up only seven with two minutes to play. From there anything could happen. If the hero clips the red wire, maybe everything goes ker-BOOM! Like this . . .

The Becker/Cruise guy was off the bench. Off the bench means he’s coaching his hind end off. In his 25th season as the Potters’ action hero, he’s on the sidelines raising his right arm high. He’s raising one finger and maybe he’s shouting, “ONE,” though who could hear anything in Galesburg’s gym rocking with raucous fans used to winning big games.

He’s signaling 1, 1, repeating it, 1, meaning the Potters were to be patient, take their ever-loving time to get a shot. They should make it a good one because they were up 26-15 in the last minute of the third quarter. Maybe it was time to clip the black wire, then go step on the Galesburgians’ throats.

Patience? Instead, the Potters’ Paige Selke, a freshman, does a freshman thing. From the left side, after maybe five or six seconds of patience, she throws up a 3-point try. It clangs off the iron. It causes Becker to drop his hands. He dropped them eloquently. His body language said, “Dear, dear Paige, tell me, please, WHAT in the WORLD was THAT?”

So Galesburg goes down, scores three points, and they’re alive going into the fourth quarter, 26-18, when . . .

It was 28-22, and that tick-tick-ticking bomb is still a thing . . . 4 3 2 . . . and Becker was coaching like a kid . . . “It never gets old winning regionals,” he would say later, this being his teams’ eighth title in 10 years . . . and he saw that freshman, dear, dear Paige, driving down the right side of the lane.

She wasn’t hiding from that 3-point mistake. “Great players have the moxie to make the next play,” Becker said. With 5:20 to play in the biggest game of her young life, the 5-foot-10 moxieful (a new word!) Potter moved through Galesburg’s packed-in-the-paint defense with a veteran’s poise and power for a layup and a 30-22 lead.

Thirty-three seconds later came the Potters’ Izzy Hutchinson to save the world. She’s a 5-foot-8 senior who once again was everywhere all at once, this time for the full 32 minutes of high-anxiety frenzy. Here she came to kiss a shot off the glass, the ball put up softly, rolling onto the rim, rolling around it, rolling slowly, curling, teasing us, and Izzy said . . .

“I watched it and thought, uh-oh . . .” She laughed at the way the ball was swirling around the rim. “Like in a toilet bowl,” she said.

Or, to use a more beautiful image, it reminded some of us of the white ball on a roulette wheel spinning round and round until it slows enough to fall, blessedly, into a black hole paying a million bucks.

From 32-22 down with 4:47 to play, Galesburg never got closer than seven and did not score in the last two minutes as Morton finished on a 5-0 run, three Hutchinson free throws and two by Selke.

Morton won with toughness, grit, and relentlessly persistent defense. (Potters shot 50% to the losers’ 20%; forced outside, Galesburg was 4-for-25 on 3’s; its 29 points were four under its previous seasons's low of 33, and its two best scorers who combined for 57 points in a semifinal managed only 13 tonight.)

The game's tone was set early with two runs by the Potters. They went 7-0 in the second quarter, moving ahead, 15-8. In the third, a 9-0 move put them up, 26-13. Each starter contributed in those runs. Abby VanMeenen had 5 points, Hutchinson and Addy Engel 4 each, Ellie V 2, Selke the other.

That scoring balance is symbolic of the team Becker has shaped. “Awesome,” the coach said. “An outstanding, talented group of kids, competitive, and they truly love each other.”

Ranked #2 in Class 3A, the Potters won their 10th straight game and 21st of their last 23. They’re 25-5 overall. They move on to next Tuesday’s sectional at East Peoria where they’ll meet friend/rival Washington, with whom they have split a pair of games this season.

Galesburg, #6 in the most recent AP poll, finished its season 26-7.

Morton’s scoring tonight: Hutchinson 15 (with game-high 8 rebounds), Selke 11, Engel 8 (also 8 rebounds) Abby V 5, Ellie V 2.

“Resounding Victory: Lady Potters Overwhelm Limestone with Team Effort”

February 12, 2024
Lady Potters 67, Limestone 42

Don't you love it in high school girls' basketball when they do things no one expects them to do, maybe especially themselves, like this...

Addy Engel, driving down the left side of the lane, felt two hands shove her in the back as she rose to shoot. The shove propelled her across the baseline. She twisted in the air, floating backwards, and there she did with the basketball what every floating-backwards good shooter would do.

She shot the thing. Perhaps more precisely, we should say she put the basketball into the air with the idea/hope/guess it might rise high over the backboard and find its way straight down from the rafters into the net.

And danged if it didn't do just that. She even saw the great thing happen. She ker-RASHED to the floor and slid on her hind end maybe six feet until her ponytail ker-BUMPED against a padded concrete wall. Meanwhile, the idea/hope/guess had become reality.

She added a free throw, her 22d point, for a 56-27 lead, and the senior co-captain later said the easy victory, in the regional opener at Galesburg, was a very good thing and not much of a surprise.

"All season," she said, "we've been working toward this moment."

"We're playing connected now," Ellie VanMeenen, a junior co-captain, said. "We're all playing as one."

(Here's an all-as-one note. As Engel sat with her back to that wall, Potters rushed to her side. That's Potters, plural. Not one, two, or three helped her up. Four.)

Anyway, it was all fun, 22-4 after one, 42-21 at the half, 63-32 after three, and then a running clock, after which the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, smiling like a happy boy, said, “DOMINANT! That was fun. The kids took care of business, they GOT AFTER IT!”

Now 24-5, on a nine-game winning streak (20 of 22), and ranked #2 in Class 3A, the Potters were so good in so many ways that Becker also said, “We looked like a playoff team. We are poised to make a run.”

That run could gain momentum Thursday night, the opponent the host Galesburg. In the second game tonight, Galesburg raised its season record to 26-6 by beating Richwoods, 69-55. In the Potterdome a month ago, Morton defeated Galesburg, 46-33.

As for what she expects of the Thursday night date, Ellie V said one word and one letter.

"Another W," she said.

Morton’s scoring tonight: Engel 24, Ellie V 11, Izzy Hutchinson 9, Abby V 6, Payton Hays 6, Paige Selke 4, Anja Ruxlow 3, Bennett Swearingen 3, Magda Lopko 1.

“Silky, Smooth, and Gritty: Lady Potters Secure Mid-Illini Championship with Grit and Toughness”

February 7, 2024
Lady Potters 45, Washington 41

Suddenly, delightfully, even surprisingly, these Potters now have won eight straight games, have won 19 of their last 21, have won the Mid-Illini Conference championship, will go into state tournament play as a #2 seed, and here I ask anybody and everybody my favorite boy-reporter question, like, Hey, everybody and anybody, didja imagine this happenin’?

“We knew we had it in us,” Izzy Hutchinson said.

“We had this game circled,” Addy Engel said, athlete talk for taking aim at one you must win.

“So fun,” Ellie VanMeenen said.

“We knew what we had to do,” Abby VanMeenen said, “and we did it.”

A month ago, they lost at Washington, 45-34, a defeat that the Potters remembered as a terrible, horrible, and ugly excuse for basketball.. Also, they said, it marked a turning point in their season. “After that,” Hutchinson said, “we became the team we are now.”

Some good basketball teams are silky smooth. They move through you and around you without you much noticing they are slicing you up. The Potters are silky and smooth, sometimes. Most times, to quote their coach, Bob Becker, they are “gritty and tough.”

The good thing is, Gritty and Tough show up every night. “Defense and rebounding,” Becker said, “wins games,” especially, as he did not say, when silky and smooth stay home pampering themselves. The Potters made only two 3-point shots tonight. (Washington, 6). By attacking on offense, Morton drew enough fouls to go 17 of 27 at the line. (Washington 7 of 11).

Gritty and Tough, sisters in pain, showed up best in the game's last 36.2 seconds. The Potters were up seven. They had the ball. The game should have been over. Instead, those 36.2 seconds became a test of Gritty and Tough's favorite cousin, Resolve.

Thirty-six.point.two seconds was time enough to undo all the good done in a 19-6 rally that brought the Potters from six points down in the third quarter to those seven points up.

Of course, that GT&R rally began on defense. It began when Ellie V, on the left side, blocked a 3-point attempt by Washington’s best shooter, Avery Tibbs.

A minute later, Ellie made a free throw. Then Abby V made two, Engel scored on a layup, and Ellie worked through defenders in the paint for a layup-and-one. Now the Potters trailed after three, 34-33.

As good as all that was, they did better in the first 7 minutes and 23.8 seconds of the fourth quarter. An 11-3 run – Engel had 4 points in there, Ellie V 3, Paige Selke 3, Hutchinson 1 – gave the Potters a 44-37 lead.

Thirty-six.point.two seconds to play.

You know how time flies when you’re having fun.

It moves slowly when you’re missing five of six free throws in a half-minute.

The Potters lead fell to three with 17.1 seconds to play.

Here, if Washington springs Tibbs for a 3-pointer, this game could go into overtime.

Then, at 15.8 seconds, Ellie VanMeenen was fouled on an in-bounds pass.

VanMeenen missed her first. Uh-oh.

Her second was no more beautiful in flight. It caught the back edge of the front rim, flew to the support, ricocheted forward to dance against both sides of the iron, rattling around in there long enough that it was the only sound in the Potterdome.

Then it fell into the net, at last a beautiful thing that put the Potters out of 3-point danger.

With a foul to give, Morton did not allow Washington even a desperation shot.

I love numbers. These support Becker’s belief that rebounding and defense win games. Rebounding, Morton 24-14; deflections/steals/blocked shots, Morton 19-12; assists Morton 10-3; turnovers, Morton 12-13.

Now 23-5 for the season, the Potters won the Mid-Illini with a 13-1 record. Washington, with a game to play, is 20-6, 11-2.

Ellie VanMeenen led Morton’s scoring with 12. Selke and Engel had 11 each. Abby V 6, Hutchinson 5.

“Bob Becker: A Legacy of Excellence in Illinois High School Girls’ Basketball”

February 5, 2024
This is Bob Becker’s 25th season as the Morton High School Lady Potters’ coach. Sixteen times his teams have won at least 20 games in a season, and nine times they’ve won 30. Four times they’ve won state championships. They’ve been a runner-up once, third once, fourth twice. Celebrants put up a sign the other night: “600 wins . . . and still counting.”

The count continues tomorrow on Senior Night at the Potterdome. Becker’s team, 22-5 this season and on a seven-game winning streak, can win the Mid-Illini Conference championship by defeating Washington.

“I just want to be 1 and 0 after the next one,” Becker often has said. It has been his way of deflecting praise when he reaches a coaching milestone. Each time he shares the credit with a community of fans, volunteers, youth coaches, supportive parents, and dedicated players.

Thousands of men and women have coached Illinois girls high school basketball teams. If you would, guess how many have won 600 games and four state championships.

Three.

Dorothy Gaters, in 46 seasons at Chicago Marshall, won 1,153 games and 10 state championships. She retired three years ago.

Dennis Koester, in 23 seasons at Teutopolis, won 652 games and five state championships. He retired 17 years ago.

The other is Bob Becker.

“Potter’s Pink Night Triumph: Celebrating 600 Wins and a Dominant Victory”

February 2, 2024
Lady Potters 59, Dunlap 32

And it wasn’t that close. How could it be on a happy, raucous Pink Night? How could it be when a Potter, Izzy Hutchinson, in a glowing pink uniform, #20, sprinted into the stands and handed a flower to Ken Getz, a cancer survivor, a war veteran, 93 years old next week?

How could it be close when the Potterdome quivered under a roaring full house of a thousand fans, that pep band bouncing brass notes off the rafters, the school’s dance squad beauties showing the varsity basketball clods how it’s done?

How could it be close when the Potters arranged for the number 600 in golden balloons and drew up a homemade billboard declaring that Bob Becker is not done yet: “600 and Still Counting”?

How could it be close when the Potters played their best basketball of the season at the right time to play their best basketball?

Not to go old-timer on y’all, but grizzled Potterdomers might tell you this was the kind of thing Morton did with Brandi Bisping, Tenley Dowell, and Katie Krupa in the golden days of yore when Bob Becker was a fresh-faced kid working his way from #400 to #500.

I mean, the poor Dunlaps. They chose a bad night to come to the Pumpkin Capital of the World. They are a decent team, now 15-11 overall, 7-5 in the Mid-Illini. A month ago they almost beat the Potters. Even in defeat, they embarrassed the winners, rallying at the end to lose by six, 57-51.

Tonight, painful memory again shown to be a motivating thing, the Potters did the embarrassing. This one was 14-3 in five minutes, 29-10 at halftime, and 47-16 soon after.

They did it defensively, first with another of Becker’s gimmick defenses (a box-and-1 disappeared Dunlap’s best scorer) and then with a man-to-man as relentlessly pestiferous as it was mobile.

Offensively, they scored from everywhere in every way. They opened that early 14-3 run with Ellie VanMeenen’s 3-pointer and closed it with the freshman Paige Selke doing a veteran thing, curling in a layup with her off hand. The later move was delivered with an old-time Potters’ merciless third quarter stomp-on-their-throat gusto. From 36-14, an 11-2 run went like this:

An Abby VanMeenen 3-pointer . . . a Selke layup off a nifty Abby V pass . . . Addy Engel’s put-back of her own miss . . . four straight free throws by the suddenly veteran rookies Abby V and Selke . . .then Selke, to earn a layup, bodied-up so strongly against a defender it was possible to imagine she muttered, “Outta my way, if you please.” . . . Abby V, the team’s 6-foot pivot, made another 3-pointer (her third of the night, the first from the top of the key, the next from the right side, this one from the left corner) . . . and Katie Brock’s mid-range jumper put an exclamation point on the paragraph!

Let us count the ways Morton has improved in a month. First, give a listen to Selke, who said, “We’ve bonded as a team since that Washington game.”

That game was an embarrassment, a 45-34 loss over there.

Now, listen to Abby V . . .

“Since Washington, we’ve had a different attitude.”

She translated that different attitude into these parts . .

“Rebounding. Defense. Executing plays. Connecting more. Three-pointers.”

Pretty much everything, eh?

“Yes, sir.”

Since Washington, they’re on a seven-game winning streak. They’ve won 18 of their last 20. They’re 22-5 overall, 12-1 in the Mid-Illini with a chance to tie Washington for the league championship next Tuesday in the Potterdome. Washington is on a 10-game winning streak. (Oops. After I wrote this, I learned that Canton, on Senior Night, ended Washington's streak, 58-51. That means Morton can the M-I outright with a victory Tuesday.)

“Tonight we showed a lot of what we are,” the Potters' coach, Becker, said. “We’re moving in the right direction, on the right trajectory. The kids are motivated, and we’ve got a chance to do something.”

That something means a run in the post-season. In Becker’s 25 seasons, his teams have done it many times. They’ve won four state championships. They’ve been in the finals at Redbird Arena four other times, second once, third once, fourth twice. They begin regional play at Galesburg on Feb. 12 against the East Peoria-Limestone winner. Stay tuned.

Abby V led Morton’s scoring with 15. Paige Selke had 13, Addy Engel 10, Elle V 7, Payton Hays 5, Abby Brooks 5, Izzy Hutchinson 2, Katie Brock 2.

“Potter’s Defense Stifles East Peoria’s Star in Convincing Victory”

January 30, 2024
Lady Potters 53, East Peoria 29

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Lady Potters Grind Out Win: A Pinball Game of Ups and Downs”

January 27, 2024
Lady Potters 57, Limestone 42

Oh my, the things a sportswriter remembers. Raise your hand if you ever played a pinball machine.

Pinball machines were the 20th century’s version of video games. They were audio-visual amusements with flashing lights, sound effects, mechanical flippers you activated to bat around a silver ball that racked up points by bouncing off rubber bumpers.

Then, when the silver ball escaped your control and rolled into a hole at the bottom of the board, you went, Dang, I had it going good.

In my grandmother’s tavern, I said those words a thousand times. Little David was a pinball wizard long before Elton John put on his Pinball Wizard boots. (Kids, ask a senior citizen.) Family historians insist that little David, 8 years old, fell off a machine one night and landed on his head, which, they say, explains everything.

Anyway, early in the second quarter, tonight, I thought of Grandma Lena’s pinball machines. Here’s the note: “4 Potters on floor, batted around a loose ball, got it, missed 3 shots, got reb’s, ‘PINBALL!’”

Nobody could control the bouncing, bouncing, bouncing ball. The Potters committed five turnovers in the first four minutes. They were on the way to yet another night of 20-something lame passes, predictable passes, and fumbled passes, not to mention a flagrant foul and a 5-second call for failing to make an in-bounds pass.

The Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, first stipulated that a win is a win is a W, and any W is better than an L. So there is that to say about this one. Still, after a long post-game talk with his team, he said, “We’re a talented team, and I’m trying to be calm about this. We had a poor game and we won by 15. But we gotta get better. We’ve got the regional coming up and that’s not going to cut it come regionals. Then it’s one-and-done.”

What will cut it is the Potters’ work midway in the game. Late in the second quarter into the early minutes of the third, they went on a 14-0 run. A 23-17 lead became 37-17. Izzy Hutchison started it with a free throw. Then came two more by Paige Selke, an Emilia Miller 3-pointer, Abby VanMeenen's layup off a Hutchinson fast-break pass, Addy Engel's mid-range jumper, Selke's layup off a beautiful spin move in the paint, and another VanMeenen bucket inside.

Those of us who grow irritable in the presence of Turnovers by Our Favorite Team were excited by the possibility of the Potters, finally up by 20, going on to crush Limestone into a powdery dust.

Instead, that lead was soon down to 11, whittled away by turnovers and failures to convert on layups and put-backs. After Limestone outscored Morton in the fourth quarter, 20-17, Becker said, “We have to find a way to extend the lead instead of it going the other way.”

Engel, a senior captain and the team’s leading scorer, said, “We have to play to win rather than playing not to lose.”

Morton is now 20-5 for the season, 10-1 in the Mid-Illini Conference. Winners of five straight, the Potters next play Tuesday at East Peoria. Limestone is 10-15, 4-7.

Engel led Morton’s scoring with 21. Selke had 12, Hutchinson 9, VanMeenen 8, Magda Lopko 4, Miller 3.

“A Sweet Victory: Lady Potters Dominate Pekin with Flair and Gum-Flying Celebrations”

January 23, 2024
Lady Potters 63, Pekin 32

I love when these things happen. I have seen many things happen in basketball games. But never this one.

With a minute and some to play, Emilia Miller, from the right side, put up a 3-point shot that hit nothing but net. Three-pointers, I have seen a thousand, some by Emilia, who loves to shoot ‘em.

This, though, was new.

“When Emilia made that 3,” her teammate, Katie Brock, said, “I got super-excited.”

A teenager, super-excited, often makes noise.

“I was screaming,” Katie said.

And now we know what happens when a Lady Potter screams in celebration while chewing gum.

“Screaming,” Katie said, “and my gum went flying,”

Of all the flying objects I have seen in basketball – really big shoes, angry obscenities, and a chair launched by Bobby Knight – Katie Brock’s chunk of gum is now my favorite.

It produced smiles all around on another of those nights when the Lady Potters were brilliant except when they were so-so against a less than so-so opponent.

The brilliant came early. The Potters were coming off their best game of the season, Saturday’s 46-33 victory over a strong Galesburg team. Without a practice session either Sunday or Monday (school closed), they yet played with relentless precision tonight – for the first half, anyway.

It was 16-2 in the first 4 ½ minutes. Four starters scored – the VanMeenen sisters, Addy Engel, and Paige Selke – all at the rim. Three of the buckets came off passes from the fifth starter, Izzy Hutchinson. Midway in the second quarter, it got to be 33-15 on a 13-6 run ignited by a Brock 3-pointer and finished by the VanMeenens (Ellie’s 3 from the left corner, two Abby free throws).

It's possible, even probable, that I lost a smidgen of interest in the second half – until Magda Lopko took over. Magda is a senior. She is one of those invaluable, voluble cheerleading teammates that a Potter alum, Olivia Remmert, once glorified as a “Benchee.” From three rows up in the bleachers, folks can enjoy Magda's benchee oratory.

“We hype each other up,” she said.

Nice, then, that in tonight’s victory, right before Emilia Miller’s 3, Magda had scored the Potters’ previous six points. That gave her 7 for the night.

I asked, “Your career high?”

A smile. “I had 8 once.”

The victory made the Potters 19-5 overall and 9-1 in the Mid-Illini Conference. Pekin is 8-12, 2-6. Morton is on a four-game winning streak with four games to play before the regionals begin, with Morton, Galesburg, Peoria, Richwoods, and Lincoln all in the same regional.

Wait, I almost heard something.

I asked Magda, “What did you say about the regional?”

“We can win the regional,” she said.

Then, playing boy reporter, I went back to Katie Brock with one more question.

“The gum,” I said, “what kind?”

“Extra Spearmint,” she said.

Ellie V led Morton’s scoring with 16. Addy Engel had 11, Abby V 9, Magda Lopko 7, Paige Selke 7, Izzy Hutchinson 4, Katie Brock 3, Payton Hays 3, Emilia Miller 3. (The Potters had six 3’s tonight by six different people.)