Many high school teenagers spend their summers poolside, relaxing, socializing and doing what typical teenagers do in the summertime. Staying up late & getting up late is still the norm for many.  The Morton Lady Potters, however, have committed their summer days and nights to getting better at basketball, passing on the tricks of their trade to future Lady Potters, challenging themselves to take on new roles for the upcoming season and community service. All of which has added up to a very busy summer, particularly when combined with other sport commitments, AAU basketball (competitive travel basketball circuit) commitments, summer jobs and maybe a little time left over with their families and friends.

Since school has ended in May, the returning players, and a batch of new varsity candidates, have been helping coach (3) week long middle school camps, participating in high school skill development sessions, playing summer league games at Illinois Central College (8 games) & in Galesburg (2 games), Summer shootouts at Mahomet (5 games) and Illinois Wesleyan (5 games) and an overnight Team Camp (8 games) at Drake University in Des Moines, IA.  All of this within the 25 allowed ‘Contact Days’ that the IHSA allows for off-season work between coaches & players.  Some days would start at 6:30am and end at 9pm.

This is nothing new to the returning players that will be seniors next season.  This has been the normal routine in June and these players know how important it is to spend these development hours with their teammates (both old and new faces). It’s part of the tradition of consistent excellence that being a Lady Potter means. It is a new experience for the players that have never played Varsity before however, and this year, that includes about half of the team.

Hall of Fame coach, Bob Becker, knows that the real key to all of these hours, that both the players and coaches share together in the summer, is about much more than the number of summer wins and losses.  The priority has never been how many summer games you win, but instead, all about individual player and team development in the off-season. The blending of the veterans and new comers.

For the coaches, it gives them a chance to see which players have the commitment level, positive attitude, determination, focus, energy level and willingness to learn, as well as which players the coaches might be able to trust in specific situations once the season starts.  Roles begin to develop and that ever so important factor of ‘Trust’ in the Sisterhood equation starts to take root.

This year the Morton Lady Potters also decided they wanted to help raise money for the St. Jude Children’s Hospital and partnered with a Mid-Illini neighbor (Washington Lady Panthers) to maximize the impact of their efforts for the cause.  Together, the two teams combined to raise over $7,800 for St. Jude!  Lemonade stands, bake sales, car washes, a Pizza Ranch night (the players served patrons) and miscellaneous efforts at the St. Jude Backyard Talent Show (BYTS) fundraiser helped raise the money.  Thanks to the teams’ efforts, the BYTS was able to raise over $18,000 this year for St. Jude!  Very worthy of a standing ovation for the Lady Potters & the Lady Panthers as well as everyone from both the Morton & Washington communities that helped make it possible. Special thanks to all the players’ families for all their support as well!

 

Congratulations to Morton Lady Potters Coach Bob Becker on receiving his 10th IBCA Coach of the Year Award! None of them more impressive than this 2018-19 Season! #HOF

Lost in the excitement of the Morton Lady Potters winning their 4th IHSA Class 3A State Championship in 5 years, was a significant individual milestone for Class of 2020 Junior – Lindsey Dullard.   Lindsey reached the 1,000 point plateau on March 1, 2019, in the State Semi-Final vs Nazareth Academy.  Lindsey now has 1,020 points heading into her final season with the Lady Potters. Lindsey becomes the 14th Lady Potter to join the 1,000 Pt. Club.  Congratulations Lindsey!

Lindsey (University of Alabama-Birmingham commit) had an incredible season for the Lady Potters and as one of three captains for the season (Dowell, Dullard & Jones), helped lead the team to this year’s State Championship, leading the team in 3-pt FG made (60), Steals (89), Assists (156), while scoring 418 points this season for the Lady Potters.

The Morton Lady Potters made an impact on the record books in many categories this past season, including the most points scored in a season 2,292 (beating the record set by last year’s team by 214 points).  Here are some of the Varsity Record Revisions after this season:

 

Varsity Record Revisions:

3 PT FG’s Made Career          Lindsey Dullard            159  (159-413)   4^th All-Time

3 PT FG’s Made Career          Tenley Dowell              133  (133-424)   9^th All-Time

3 PT FG’s Made Career          Maddy Becker              86 (86-221)         13^th All-Time

3 PT FG’s Made Season         Lindsey Dullard            60                        11^th All-Time

3 PT FG’s Made Season         Maddy Becker              55                        13^th All-Time

3 PT FG% Season                   Maddy Becker              .404 (55-136)      12^th All-Time

3 PT FG% Season                   Courtney Jones            .394  (26-66)       16^th All-Time

3 PT FG Game                        Maddy Becker              7  (Simeon)         T2nd All-Time

Steals Career                          Tenley Dowell              194                       9^th All-Time

Steals Career                          Lindsey Dullard            192                      11^th All-Time

Steals Season                         Lindsey Dullard            89                        6^th All-Time

Points Career                         Tenley Dowell              1,762                   4^th All-Time

Points Career                         Lindsey Dullard            1,020                   12^th All-Time

Points Season                        Tenley Dowell              558                      8^th All-Time

FTs Made Season                   Tenley Dowell              105                      16^th All-Time

Field Goals Made Season      Tenley Dowell              209                      6^th All-Time

Field Goal % Season              Katie Krupa                   .591  (114-193)  5^th All-Time

Assists Career                         Tenley Dowell              295                      T8th All-Time

Assists Career                         Lindsey Dullard            292                      10^th All-Time

Assists Season                        Lindsey Dullard            156                      4th All-Time

Blocked Shots Career            Lindsey Dullard            64                        10^th All-Time

Rebounds Career                   Tenley Dowell              589                      9^th All-Time

 

Team Season Points              2018-2019                    2,292                   1^st All-Time

Team FG Made Season         2018-2019                    844                      1^st All-Time

Team Points/Half                  2018-2019                    58                        1^st All-Time

                                                     2018-2019                    56                        3rd All-Time

Most Wins Team                   2018-2019                    33                        T2nd All-Time

STATE FINISH                      2018-2019         STATE CHAMPIONS

 

Records are meant to be broken!

 

Morton’s Lady Potters 35, Glenbard South 21

It’s so hard to be humble. Bob Becker wants it for his basketball team. He calls it “humble swagger.” It’s a Midwest thing. As long as you’re good at what you do, just do it, no need to brag it up. The coach has preached the humble manner for 20 years. He even lives it (except maybe for the bow tie, which we’ll get to in a minute.) But when a team wins a state championship and wins it the next year and the next and then, after a year away, wins it all for a fourth time in five seasons – as the Morton High School Lady Potters did today – maybe it’s time to grant the Potters a one-day exemption from humility. They could say anything they want, like . . .

“We are pretty gosh-dang good.”

“Tootin’ our own horn, we’re darn near perfect.”

“If there was a higher league, we’d go play up there and give the earthlings a chance to win the big trophy.”

But no. No, no, not a chance that any Potter is going to say anything like any of that. Ego inflation is not in these Potters, not even in the first minutes after defeating Glenbard South, 35-21, at Redbird Arena today to add the 2019 state Class 3A championship to the 2015, ’16, and ’17 titles.

“It’s surreal,” Katie Krupa said, “so surreal, and I haven’t really processed it yet. It was what we wanted from the first day on.” She’s a freshman, a 6-foot post player, a star rising in the Potters’ firmament. She called the Potters’ achievement surreal, and she meant it wasn’t just that they won, it was how they did it. “I’m so proud of this team, my teammates, how hard we’ve worked all season,” Krupa said. “It’s the Potter way.”

OK, I’ve long since bought into the Potter preachments. But, seriously, folks. Think of it. Morton is now tied with Lombard Montini for the most 3A championships in Illinois history. And in the last five seasons, the Potters have gone 33-3, 33-3, 34-2, 31-2, and 33-3. Do the math: 164 and 13, a .927 winning percentage. Now, tell me. How many state championships do you have in your trophy case? What do you do that you succeed in doing 92.7 percent of the time? I haven’t put the garage door up that often before getting into reverse. I can’t find my shoes that often. To talk about surreal is to talk about these Potters, who today proved they are so good that they can beat you any way you want to be beaten.

Yes, as the country song goes, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way – and the Potters have won running against running teams, won physically against physical teams, and won shooting against shooting teams. Today, they won walking. This was basketball played by somnambulists. (I’ll wait while you look it up.) Save for its historic significance in the pumpkin patches of Central Illinois, this game could have cured your insomnia.

That’s because 1) Glenbard South depends on aggressive man-to-man defense that funnels opponents toward its tall, shot-blocking post, and 2) its offense is designed to help the defense by killing time at the other end. The result is Zylocaine-ish. Morton’s 35 points today were the most Glenbard South had given up in its last 11 games.

And those 35 points were absolutely the fewest Morton could have scored today. The Potters led after a quarter, 17-3, and there was no reason to think anything would change. At halftime, it was 24-5. “The first quarter, we were masterful,” Becker said. In scoring the game’s first 15 points, the Potters were dominant at both ends. Their press forced a 10-second call. They made three steals in the first five minutes. They scored on fast breaks, on a put-back, and on a 3.

At quarter’s end, an Illinois High School Association official walked behind the Morton bench. He was carrying the state championship trophy. It would have saved time had he simply tapped Becker on the shoulder and said, “Here, take care of this for an hour, then it’s yours.”

From there on, I needed a snooze alarm on my notebook.

For nearly four minutes of the second quarter, neither team scored. Glenbard South did put up three 3-point shots, all airballs. However proud Glenbard South was of its defense, its defense was the second-best defense on the court today. By game’s end, Morton had made 13 steals (to the losers’ 4), had committed only 7 fouls (to 14), had allowed the losers only 10 shots inside the 3-point arc (against 3-for-18 from outside).

As dreadful as the second quarter was, the third surpassed it in zzzzz’s. Morton didn’t score for 7 minutes and 57.3 seconds. At :02.7, Krupa made two free throws for a 26-14 lead. Becker attributed the desultory performance to Glenbard South’s defense. I thought that any team with a 24-5 halftime lead had reason to lose interest in the proceedings, though that’s never a good idea with a state championship there for the taking. In any case, Morton snapped out of it long enough to go up, 31-17, on a free throw and power move by Krupa around a Tenley Dowell drive. There were 3 minutes, 27 seconds to play. It only seemed like three days, what with the losers then giving fouls to get to a bonus situation that might profit them. It didn’t.

Krupa and Dowell each had 10 points, Lindsey Dullard 5, Courtney Jones 4, Raquel Frakes 4, Peyton Dearing 2.

Wait. In addition to the trophy presentation, the game did have a thrilling moment.

It came when Bob Becker first walked onto the court.

That bow tie. A red bow tie.

He had talked to a fellow coach about Glenbard South. That coach ended the scouting report with a piece of advice.

“Wear something good for the championship picture,” he said.

Becker had been to a store in Champaign. He bought a shirt. He thought of buying a red sports coat. After all these years of blacks, browns, and beiges, Becker considered a red sports coat.

“I couldn’t go there,” he said.

Humble swagger does not wear a red jacket.

“But the salesman was really good,” Becker said.

Thus, the bow tie.

A bit swaggerish, perhaps, but it was a small bow tie.

Morton’s Lady Potters 65, LaGrange Park Nazareth Academy 51

It got quiet there for a while. Everybody in town, give or take a few slackers, had come to Redbird Arena. Certainly, every high school kid, give or take a few advanced chemistry nerds, was at Redbird. Everyone came wearing red, the Red Sea of Morton. They came with posters and signs and big-head portraits of their heroines. They filled a third of the 10,000-seat arena and came to be raucous, rock ‘n rollin’ fans. They came to see the Potters win, and win again tomorrow, to win a fourth state championship in five seasons.

And then the game started. And it got quiet. Real quiet. Dead Sea quiet.

Someone left a layup short – a layup, uncontested, it bounced off the underside of the rim. Then a 3-pointer from 20 feet flew 19 feet. The Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, got up in someone’s grill over a defensive assignment. Another missed layup. A traveling call. It was so quiet that in the sixth row of the bleachers you could hear the coach shout, “Change that mind-set NOW.” Becker was running subs in and out, once sending in three together, searching for an answer to whatever was happening. ”A little tentative,” Becker would say afterwards. “A little bit frazzled.”

Nazareth Academy led after that quiet quarter, 11-4. Morton had 4 points, Morton averaging 65 a game, Morton with two baskets to begin the season’s biggest game. Not that Nazareth, even if it matched Morton’s 31-3 season record, was that good. The Potters were better in every basketball way. Still, here’s a note I made about the Potters: “As bad as they can play. Scared. Hurried. Needs life.”

Then along came Tenley Dowell.

This would become her finest moment. When her team needed her most, she was there. As good as she has been for three seasons, she now can say she was at her best when it meant the most. Without her today, Morton loses. With her – a game-high 23 points, game-high eight rebounds, 7-of-9 shooting, 7-of-8 free throws – with Tenley Dowell breathing life into every one of her teammates – no, no, forcing life into them – they won going away.

At the end of that first quarter, here’s what Dowell thought: “We have to score some points.” So, on Morton’s first possession of the second quarter, Dowell did what defines her. She attacked the rim. She’s a 6-foot senior All-Stater who moves with long strides and great body control. Through traffic, she finishes with either zhand. Given a glimpse of an opening, she’s gone. Fouled on that drive, she made a free throw. One point. Not much. But enough to suggest life. Then came some points. Two by Lindsey Dullard, two by Katie Krupa, two by Courtney Jones – and it was tied, 11-all, and the Red Sea came to life, roaring.

And with 3:54 left in the half, Dowell had the ball on the right side. She had the ball for a second, maybe less. Catch and shoot. From the right side arc, she put up a 3-point shot. “We have to score some points,” she thought, and on the season’s biggest stage – a semifinal in the state tournament at Redbird Arena – she caught it and shot it and let her wrist fall loose, a shooter’s pose, as the ball fell through the net, a shooter’s reward.

It was Dowell’s only 3-point attempt of the game. It was the climactic moment of a 10-0 run, with Dowell beginning the run and ending it. It put Morton in front, 14-11, with Dowell having scored 8 of the points. Once in front, the Potters stayed there.

“We got better and better as the game went on,” Becker said, for that’s what championship teams do, imposing their will on lesser teams as the vise of time closes. Becker’s teams are famous for turning games their way in the third quarter, and if today they used a solid second quarter to take a 23-18 halftime lead, they decided the issue in the third. Up 26-25 at 5:37, the Potters outscored Nazareth 12-2 in the next four minutes.

That run began with two Krupa power moves underneath and a free throw. Dullard scored three points on an alley-oop layup-and-one, after which she dropped off a pass to Krupa for two more. Then Dullard deflected a Nazareth pass near midcourt and got the ball to Krupa, whose missed layup was put back in by the trailing – you guessed it – Tenley Dowell.

Morton led, 38-27, and was up, 42-30, at the buzzer when Nazareth’s star, Annie Stritzel, thought she might as well throw one at the hoop from 65 feet, the heave falling 20 feet short – an act of futility symbolic of her day against the Potters’ scrambling, helping, filling-the-gaps defense. Stritzel came in off a 36-point super-sectional game. For the seasons, she averaged 25 a game. Of her 21 today, 10 came in the last four minutes when the Potters had a double-figure lead and her scoring no longer mattered.

And now, for the fourth time in five seasons, the Potters will play for the Class 3A state championship. Their opponent today will be Glenbard South, a 32-27 winner over Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin. For those Red Sea fans wondering how good Glenbard South is, I will say only this: I watched 30 seconds before deciding that Morton could beat an all-star team out of that game. That said, I still want Tenley Dowell in the lineup today. Just in case, y’know.

Dowell’s 23 led Morton’s scoring. Dullard and Krupa had 17 apiece. Courtney Jones had 4, Peyton Dearing 2, Raquel Frakes 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 70, Kankakee’s Bishop McNamara 43

I could start with Bob Becker’s shoes. “You are changing them, right?” is what his daughter, Maddy, said. They were dark blue sneakers with white edges. They were, to be honest, a step up from the world-weary dress shoes he most often wears. Still. Sneakers? For a super-sectional game? With a state championship still at stake? “They’re comfortable,” the coach said, “and I like ‘em.” So there is that.

Or I could start with the Bishop McNamara guys in the first row of bleachers right behind the Potters’ bench. I don’t know that they’re students. I do know they wore Bishop Mac gear and were raucous in support of the Bishops – until it was clear these Bishops didn’t have a prayer. The Potters were tall and lean; the Bishops, not so much. Their heroines down by about 30, the McNamara guys began shouting to the Potters, “I’m taking you to the prom.”

“Yes, I heard them,” Bridget Wood said. So I could start with the senior about to make her third trip to Redbird Arena in four seasons. I could tell you she made my favorite play tonight. She had the ball on the right side. “I saw an opening,” she said. She ran to daylight. On the way, she took a zig-zag route though maybe three beleaguered, exhausted Bishops. Asked to describe her path to a layup, Wood laughed. She waved her hands this way. She tilted her head that way. She shrugged her shoulders. She said, in essence, “Who knows, but it was fun.”

I could start with a riff on the Potters’ chances of winning a fourth state championship in five years. Those chances are very good. I’ve seen the teams that won the state in 2015, ’16, and ’17. This team, now 31-3, may be better than those. This team can beat you any way you want to be beaten. On offense, it can score in transition and out of sets, from down low or from out high. On defense, it can suffocate you with a full-court, zone trapping press they call “mayhem,” it can go man-to-man against your best people, and it can throw in a triangle-and-two if Becker decides to confuse you into submission.

“They’re playing at a very high level now, at both ends,” the coach said. “There’s just a belief in each other, a trust, a connectedness. All 14 players are in it as one. I just love it.”

But I really should start with Lindsey Dullard because, if you didn’t see Dullard’s first quarter tonight, you missed the best quarter of any girl’s sweetest basketball dreams. It wasn’t just that she scored 16 points, 11 of them in the last three minutes of the quarter. She scored them sensationally in a big game. She went 4-for-4 on 3-pointers from all points of the basketball compass – one from the left arc, one on top, one from the deep right corner, and one from the top right. (I’m not counting one she missed from 40 feet at the buzzer.)

Such work demands a tick-tock replay: At 6:26, a 3. Ten seconds later, two free throws. Three minutes later, a 3. Forty seconds later, a 3. Two minutes later, a 3. Fifteen seconds later, two free throws.

“Dullie was amazing,” her senior All-State running mate Tenley Dowell said. “She was taking all the shots – and she should’ve been – she was making everything.”

Dullard said, “Oh, my gosh. So excited. We came out really hard, and my teammates got me the ball. All I had to do was put it in.”

Off a 26-10 first quarter, the Potters were up at halftime, 39-19. They began a 17-0 run late in the second quarter that carried halfway through the third for a 52-19 lead. It was this lop-sided: One minute into the third quarter, when Dowell threw in a 3, the Potters had enough points, 45, to win without scoring again. And this was against a team with 24 victories, a team that by reaching the super-sectional was one of the last eight standing.

And now, for the fourth time in five seasons, the Potters have earned their way to Redbird Arena for the Final Four of the state’s Class 3A tournament. Two victories Friday and Saturday would give the Potters their fourth state championship in those five years.

Can the Potters win it all again?

“I definitely think we can,” Dullard said.

“I think we’ve got it,” Dowell said.

And Bridget Wood said, “I don’t want it to end.”

Dullard led all scorers with 24. Dowell had 18 and Courtney Jones 10. Katie Krupa had 6, Wood 5, Addi Cox 2, Claire Kraft 2, Megan Gold 2, Peyton Dearing 1.

Morton’s Lady Potters 46, Richwoods 39

I said, “Be still, my heart,” and my heart said, “But how?” Fate had this one in her hands. Anything could happen. Three minutes to play. It might have been three hours. Young people could grow old, old people could grow young. Tides could turn, the moon could fall from the sky. “Be still, my heart,” I said, and my heart said, “I get it, I get it. Shut up, already.”

The Potters were down by eight until, suddenly, they are up by three with a minute and change to go. That minute and change might as well have been time without end. Hurry, Fate. Hurry, tell us what will be. Richwoods is a mighty force, undeniable in the last hour or day or month, however long it was that Richwoods owned this one. A minute and 29 seconds to play and the Potters are up by three, which is nothing in this moment, for Fate is fickle, we know. She can erase three points with a flick of a finger.

A minute, 29 to play.

Timeout, Richwoods.

At the Morton bench, the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, is crouched before his five starters. This night he is coaching like a man with his hair on fire. Early on, upset with a referee’s judgment, he did a Houdini-escaping-a-strait-jacket trick to get out of his suit jacket and throw the thing down emphatically. Later on, he had been so rambunctious that his tie hung sideways and his shirttail hung out the back. Now, he is crouched before his team, with 1:29 to play, up by three points. And, at the top of his voice to players a foot from him, in all-capital letters with an exclamation point, he tells Fate what she damn well can do tonight.

“THIS IS OUR FRICKIN’ GAME!” he tells his players.

My heart felt better.

Richwoods didn’t score again. The defending state Class 3A champions, ranked No. 1 going into this game, winners 30 times in 32 games – the Peorians managed only one shot in the minute, 29. It wasn’t so much that they failed. It was more that the Potters’ Lindsey Dullard succeeded grandly. She made two extraordinary plays. In fewer than six seconds, at :23.2 and :17.7, the 6-foot-1 junior got offensive rebounds on free throws to keep the ball in Morton’s hands. Then she made a free throw at :16.1 to give Morton a four-point lead.

My heart felt really good then.

This was a classic. Nearly 2,000 people were in the Illinois Valley Central High School gymnasium. We had waited in a long, cold line to get into the building. Then we waited in a long, hot corridor to get into the gym. I’ve walked into 43 Super Bowls easier than I got into this sectional championship game. The wait was worth it.

We saw two of the state’s very best teams, whatever class you want to choose. Both teams had marquee players headed for Division-1 universities. Both played scrambling, unforgiving defense. Neither asked for quarter physically, neither gave quarter. More than once, a Morton player stepped over a Richwoods girl at her feet, and, more than once, a Richwoods player stepped over a Potter at her feet.

The difference came on offense. Morton was good from outside (six 3’s), Richwoods was good inside (only two of its 17 buckets came from more than point-blank range). But the Potters were also good in close. Their freshman star, Katie Krupa, led all scorers with 21 points, seven on free throws, the other 14 on power moves to the rim, scoring with either hand. Her opposite number, Richwoods’ all-state senior Cam Taylor, scored 17 points (a good night, considering that Becker chose to double-team her every move and begged/dared Richwoods to try to score from outside; it couldn’t.)

Morton led at quarter, 9-4, and at halftime, 22-17. Richwoods’ only sustained move came in the first five minutes of the second half. A 13-2 run in which Taylor scored six points gave Richwoods a 30-24 lead. It was during that run, with 4:17 left in the quarter, that Becker’s suit jacket came off his body and went flying over his assistant coaches’ heads. It was another full two minutes, though, before Morton scored, and Richwoods extended its lead to 34-26 with seven seconds left in the quarter.

Seven seconds.

Not much time.

But enough time.

Enough time for Courtney Jones to get the ball to Dullard near mid-court.

Enough time for Dullard to put up a shot.

A shot that was in the air when the buzzer sounded.

And in the net a heartbeat later.

It had been 13 minutes of game time since Dullard had last scored. She had been tentative shooting. She had fumbled away possessions. She had made passes that Richwoods intercepted. Then she banked it in from 40 feet. Instead of being eight down, Morton was five down.

“That shot got me going on the inside,” Dullard said.

Still, Richwoods led, 36-29, with under seven minutes to play.

Then Tenley Dowell made a 3 and Dullard followed 30 seconds later with another 3 and it had become a be-still-my-heart kind of game.

After a Richwoods free throw, Dullard found Krupa inside to tie it at 37-all. Twenty-seven seconds later – you may notice a trend here – Dullard made a 3-pointer from the left arc. Morton led, 40-37, with 3:50 to play. At 3:32, Richwoods made it 40-39 – and never scored again – largely because of Dullard’s two offensive rebounds that denied Richwoods two critical possessions in the last minute.

Those were big-time rebounds. As she stood in the middle slot on the left of the lane, Dullard saw that the Richwoods player to her left didn’t intend to box her out. So Dullard circled around that girl and into the lane. And – thank you, Fate – the missed free throw bounced high and to the right. Its flight gave the husting Dullard time to cross the lane and beat everyone to the ball. And fewer than six seconds later, she did it again.

“Oh, I wanted that ball,” she said. “I wanted it so bad.”

Krupa was thrilled, too. “Everything we had to do all season, the running, the conditioning, the practices – it’s so worth it,” she said. Krupa’s 21 points came on the heels of a 26-point performance in the sectional semifinal. Her coach, Becker, said, “The sky’s the limit for Katie Krupa.”

There seems to be no limit on these Potters right now. They’re 30-3 for the season, the team’s fifth straight season with at least 30 victories. In those five years, the Potters are 161-13. Last year, you remember, Richwoods won this game and went on to win the state championship. There’s no reason to expect anything less from these Potters. They play Monday in the super-sectional at Coal Valley. My heart will be ready.

Krupa led all scorers with 21 Dullard had 12, Dowell 9, and Jones 4.

Morton’s Lady Potters 71, Canton 59

I sat three rows behind the Morton bench, which meant I sat in the Peoria Richwoods’ fans’ section in the Illinois Valley Central High School gym. It also meant I sat alongside Richwoods players who, after their cakewalk in the night’s first semfinal, had stayed to watch Morton. So I can report that the loudest cheer I heard all night came at the buzzer ending the first quarter of the Morton game.

That’s because it came directly into my good ear from the Richwoods players. It came when a Canton player threw one in from 35 feet. I made a note of that moment when the 3-point prayer cut Morton’s lead to 37-25. The note: “Rwoods plyrs up + loving it.”

A friend from the Washington Post, with me on a busman’s holiday, asked, “Are they cheering because they don’t want to play Morton?”

Maybe. They lost to the Potters by a point just after Christmas after beating them in double overtime Thanksgiving week. So maybe they’d rather not play a team that good that is now playing well enough to win its fourth state championship in five seasons. Or maybe people on the west side of the Illinois River just don’t like people on the east side.

In the end, who knows why anybody does anything? All I know is that the game we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. Morton-Richwoods III. It’s the climax of a thrilling trilogy; it’s also a rematch of last year’s sectional championship game. People east of the river may want to forget that one. Richwoods won, 49-29, and it wasn’t nearly that close. The Knights went on to win the state championship and, this year, set their sights on winning it again.

Before she became a Potter, Katie Krupa saw that game a year ago. Most of it, anyway. She said, “I didn’t want to watch it,” meaning the part where Richwoods intimidated Morton en route to a 30-point lead.

Krupa was an eighth-grader then, a spectator waiting her turn on-court. Now she’s a freshman who scored 26 points tonight and said of that loss to Richwoods, “That won’t happen again. It’ll be fun this time.”

It will be fun only if the Potters play better than they did tonight. They were up by 27 points with a quarter and a minute to play against a team they’d beaten twice this season by 30 and 42. But as Morton coach Bob Becker went deep into his reserves, giving his starters rest, Canton began throwing everything into the air and watching it fall through the hoop. Suddenly, Morton’s lead was down to a dozen points, 64-52.

With 1:56 to play, Becker turned to his bench and said, “Starters, check in.”

By then even the starters didn’t help much. Canton got it to 64-56 with 1:04 to play. A couple more 3-pointers and there might be no Richwoods-Morton III.

“I don’t think there was ever a doubt,” Becker said, though he did admit that sending in his starters for the last two minutes was one way to make sure there was never a doubt. Canton made seven fourth-quarter field goals to Morton’s two. The Potters’ last seven points came on free throws by starters: Two by Krupa, two by Tenley Dowell, and three by Lindsey Dullard.

If Thursday night’s sectional championship game portends the eventual state champion as it did a year ago, it will be because Morton plays for 32 minutes the way it did for three minutes tonight. The Potters led 39-27 when they began a 17-2 run for a 56-29 lead that caused one Richwoods player to rise and turn to leave while saying, “This game’s over.”

The run began with a Krupa power-move layup followed by her put-back of a rebound. Dullard stole an in-bounds pass for a layup. Then Krupa scored a layup-and-one off a nifty Dullard pass. Dullard and Addi Cox scored from in close and Dowell capped the run with a steal and layup set up by Morton’s trapping press.

The :Potters were 27 points up with 2:48 to play in the third quarter, and another 40-point victory over Canton seemed inevitable. Instead, in the next nine minutes, Canton made its own run, a 27-8 move, the kind of thing that no other team had been able to do to Morton all season.

The desultory ending didn’t worry Bob Becker.

“We’ll regroup and be ready to go Thursday,” he said.

There will be no secrets that night, not between veteran teams meeting for the fifth time in two seasons.

“They do what they do,” Becker said, “and we do what we do. It will be a great game.”

What Richwoods does best is bring power. What Morton does best is bring finesse. The team that best does what the other best does will win. I think that team will be Morton.

Krupa’s 26 led the Potters tonight. Dullard had 17, Dowell 13. Addi Cox had 4, Raquel Frakes 3, Courtney Jones 3, Peyton Dearing 3, Megan Gold 2.

Maddy Becker went down with a knee injury a minute into tonight’s game and sat out the rest. She is to be examined Wednesday morning.

The Morton Lady Potters Captured their 5th consecutive outright Mid-Illini Conference Title (3rd consecutive undefeated  Mid-Illini Championship) on Friday, February 8, 2019 with a 60-42 victory vs, Dunlap, on Senior Night at the PotterDome.  The win also extended the Lady Potters Mid-Illini win streak to 47 games.

The Lady Potters outscored their Mid-Illini opponents by an average of 37 points per game and the closest an opponent came was 18 points this season.  Now take into consideration that the Lady Potters starters averaged only 2.25 quarters of playing time in each game and you can get an idea how dominant the Potters were in Conference play this year.

As impressive as the Lady Potters offense was this year, averaging 68 points per game, their defense was even more impressive, allowing only 31 points per game.  The Potters only allowed a Conference opponent to surpass 45 points in 1 out of 14 games (Dec 11th vs Washington 65-47), though that game was a ‘Running Clock” game as the Morton  starters did not play the 4th quarter, but led 57-27 at the end of third quarter.

The Lady Potters then marched on to Regionals, which they hosted this year, and won their 5th consecutive Regional Championship, with a 82-22 win over LaSalle-Peru in the Regional Semi-Final and a 59-33 win over Metamora in the Regional Championship game.  The victory over Metamora was their 3rd of the season vs. the Redbirds, which finished their season at 21-7 and 10-4 in the Mid-Illini Conference (tied for 2nd place with Washington).

Morton now advances to the Sectional Semi-Final at Illinois Valley Central, in Chillicothe, on Tuesday, February 19th at 7:30pm. They will face another familiar opponent in this game, as the Lady Potters will play Canton for the 3rd time this year.  Canton won the first Regional Championship in their program’s history on Friday by winning the Geneseo Regional over host Geneseo 56-50.  The other two teams in the Sectional are Bloomington Central Catholic and Richwoods.

Come out and cheer on the Lady Potters, as they continue their quest to get back to Redbird Arena!

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

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

“Give it to her,” is what he says.

Only louder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If a Richwoods game comes, the Potters are ready.

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

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

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

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

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

Morton’s Lady Potters 82, LaSalle-Peru 22

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

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

“Gotta go do it again,” she said.

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

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

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

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

Then Morton scored the next 23 points.

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

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

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

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

Vickery said, “They should think that.”

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

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

Morton’s Lady Potters 60, Dunlap 42

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, the game.

Yes, there was a game.

Not much of one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The PotterDome was rocking on Senior Night 2019 (Friday, February 8th), as Potter fans showed their appreciation for the six fantastic Seniors – Kathryn Reiman, Megan Gold, Claire Kraft, Bridget Wood, Addi Cox & Tenley Dowell.

Watch the Class of 2019 Senior Night Video here: https://youtu.be/pY5VcAR_fCM

The Lady Potters hosted Dunlap and locked-up their 3rd consecutive ‘Undefeated’ Mid-Illini Conference Season & 5th consecutive ‘Outright’ Mid-Illini Championship. The Lady Potters have now won 47 straight Mid-Illini games in a row.  Go Potters!!!

Morton’s Lady Potters 81, Canton 39

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

Eleven days, they waited.

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

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

Eleven days.

It happened tonight.

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

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

I will wait while you read that paragraph again.

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

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

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

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

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

Especially when the target is your coach.

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

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

It had to be tonight.

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

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

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

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

It shows Becker lowering himself onto the bench.

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

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

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

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

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