Morton’s Lady Potters 80, Limestone 33

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I finished the sentence. “And steal it?”

“I find that very enjoyable,” she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Morton’s Lady Potters 59, Pekin 23

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

They wanted OUT OF THE HOUSE!

Three days of Arctic weather!

Twenty-two below zero!

Snow, ice!

Enough!

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

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

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

I believe winter causes stupidity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Morton’s Lady Potters 69, Metamora 37

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

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

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

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

What instrument?

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

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

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

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

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

Well, listen to Dowell . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blocked.

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

Knocked out of the air by . . .

Dullard.

Lindsey Dullard had . . . wait, what?

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

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

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

He said that after she scored all of seven points.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Morton’s Lady Potters 85, East Peoria 9

Well.

Let’s see.

No, I can’t say that.

That, either.

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

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

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

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

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

Or I could start like this . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There, I feel better already.

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

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

Morton’s Lady Potters 74, Bloomington 38

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, wait. I forgot one thing.

The smile.

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

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

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

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

And what does she do from outside?

Of course.

She puts up a 3-point shot.

Her first of the season.

It’s nothing but net.

Of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Morton’s Lady Potters 60, Galesburg 16

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

Soon enough, the score was 27-5.

Then 52-11.

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

I thought to ask Massey about the Potters.

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

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

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

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

No wonder he wanted those timeouts.

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

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

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

Becker: “No, I didn’t.”

Reporter: “You did.”

Becker: “Uhh…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Really, Maddy, a smile on an airball?

In answer, she laughed.

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

Morton’s Lady Potters 61, Dunlap 37

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

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

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

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

Let her tell it.

“I took off,” she said.

Meaning she WENT! WENT! WENT!

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

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

“I lobbed it to her,” Dullard said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Morton’s Lady Potters 67, poor poor East Peoria 13

So I whip out two one-dollar bills. The nice lady at the East Peoria High School ticket counter says no, no, here’s a senior card, it gets you in all Mid-Illini Conference games, free. I read the back of the card: “Cardholder must be at least age 60 and may be asked to show proof of age.” My question is: why didn’t the nice lady ask for PROOF OF AGE? A glance is all it took? Did the glare off my head give me away? Maybe the mustache, which is, I admit, in a certain light, white-ish.

After that excitement, things got dull. In the second and fourth quarters, Morton outscored East Peoria, 40-0. Over the last three quarters, it was 55-6. In three blilzkrieg bursts that lasted 2 minutes and 13 seconds of the middle quarters – steals, forced turnovers, fast breaks, 3-point shots – Morton left EP for dead, 21-0. At that rate, Morton wins, 302-0. I’d pay $2 to see that game.

Instead of his usual starters, Morton coach Bob Becker started five seniors, only one a regular. Four minutes into the game, he subbed out the seniors with five juniors. He substituted five people at a time five times. It was 12 minutes into the game before he had his regular five in. Later, he had my favorite unit together, featuring three left-handers. I was hoping that with the running clock in the fourth quarter, Becker would look into the bleachers and send in EVERYBODY WITH WHITE MUSTACHES WHO GOT IN FREE!!!

As to why Becker did the unusual rotations, he said, “There was an opportunity to do so.” Meaning, y’know, it was East Peoria, poor poor East Peoria, winless in the Mid-Illini Conference this season– always poor except for that night in January of 2016. One does not need be a senior citizen cardholder to remember that night. Inexplicably, astonishingly, unbelievably, and all other adverbs suggesting we didn’t see what we saw, East Peoria played Jedi mind tricks on the Potters and won, 37-35. (And this happened in a season when Morton went on to win its second of three straight state championships.)

Since that gawdawful night, Morton has beaten East Peoria five straight times – 90-33, 80-33, 84-11, 74-21, 67-13. The average score is 79-20. None of those games was anywhere near that close.

Two notes, one on fashion: I liked the Potters’ gray road jerseys, saved from the 2014-15 season when the team won its first state championship. “Undefeated in those jerseys,” Bob Becker said. OK with the jerseys, but what’s with the belts-turned-down look on the shorts? “The jerseys didn’t all fit the same,” Courtney Jones said by way of kinda sorta not quite explaining why players turned their belts inside out and created a raggedy white-belt look on the gray uniforms. Inelegant.

A second note, on the best bang-bang play tonight. It came off Courtney Jones’s foot. East Peoria thought to in-bound at mid-court. On a bounce pass, Jones said, “I just stuck my foot out there. I was so surprised.” She kicked the ball on a line ker-POW! – and the ball flew into the second row of bleachers where it ricocheted off 11-year-old Will Bimrose — ker-POW!!!

Jones said, “I went, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and my eyes opened real wide,” because she seemed to have kicked the ball into young Will’s nose.

“My leg,” young Will reported later, happy that the Jones missile had missed his left arm, broken in soccer last week. At game’s end, Jones sought out Will to apologize. He told her he was OK.

Morton is now 16-2 for the season and 6-0 in the Mid-Illini. Tenley Dowell led the Potters scoring tonight with 15. Maddy Becker had 12, Katie Krupa 8, Raquel Frakes 6, Bridget Wood 5, Lindsey Dullard 4, five players had 3 each (Makenna Baughman, Peyton Dearing, Kathryn Reiman, Megan Gold, Jones), and Addie Cox had 2.

 

2018 is in the books and the Morton Lady Potters (15-2) have many great moments and memories to look back on. The State Farm Holiday Classic (SFHC) (which falls between Christmas and New Years Eve) has served as a mid-season test for the Lady Potters each year, dating back to the 2006-07 season.   Entering the 2018 State SFHC at 12-1, the Lady Potters had more than taken care of business on all but one occasion this season and was really only challenged twice.

Coming off last year’s 31-2 season, the Potters were a combined 43-3 since the start of the prior season and hadn’t lost a Mid-Illini Conference game in over 1,070 days.  That’s pretty good right?  Well, of course it is, but yet even with that dominance, there was still an aura of incompleteness that could be sensed from many Potter fans.  I guess that will happen when your team wins 3 straight State Championships, goes 131-10 over 4 years, but finally lose a post season game in the Sectional Final (February 2018).  Combine that broken post season streak with the fact that all 3 of those losses of that 43-3 record, came from one team (Peoria Richwoods), the most recent in a double OT loss to the Knights on November 24th, 2018 (just one month prior).

So the Lady Potters, with all their dominance, had those demons staring at them as the entered the 2018 SFHC.  The Potters had been ranked with the #3 seed in the tournament, which was arguably the strongest SFHC field of all time and one of the very best and most competitive Large School Girls tournaments in the Midwest.  #1 Peoria Richwoods, #2 Union H.S. (Ryle, KY), #4 Rock Island, #5 Bethalto Civic Memorial, #6 Chicago Simeon, #7 St. Ignatius, #8 Geneseo, #9 Chicago Kenwood  and #10 Normal Community, all came in State ranked 3A & 4A teams that were very capable of making a run in this tournament and winning the whole thing.  There were over 20 likely Division 1 players participating and even teams #11 – 16 included some good teams.  #11 Normal West will likely compete for a top 3 standing in the Big 12 Conference and #15 Canton is strong enough to finish in the top 3 of the Mid-Illini Conference this year for example.  That in itself gives you some idea of how strong the SFHC Large School Girls Bracket was this year.

As it turned out, the SFHC Seeding Committee did an excellent job with the seeding these 16 teams as almost every team finished the tournament within a spot or two of their original seed.  Seven of the eight higher seeds won in the first round and the #8 seed (Geneseo) lost to the #9 seed (Kenwood) in the only upset of Round 1.  All four of the top 4 seeds, Richwoods, Union (KY), Morton and Rock Island advanced in the Quarterfinal round, although there were some closely contested games on Day 2, which would be expected with this level of talent.  Both Semi-final games were great games with the lead changing throughout the game in both games. Many were expecting a possible Championship match-up between Morton and Richwoods, but those people were only half right.  They did get the match-up, only it was in the 3rd Place game and not the Championship game, as Morton fell to the #2 seed (Union, KY) and Richwoods fell to #4 Rock Island.  Morton outlasted Richwoods to take 3rd Place and Union, KY ran past Rock Island in the Championship Game.  All of these games were great high school basketball games to watch and showcased some of the very best teams that you will see this year.

Here are some of the Morton Lady Potter video highlights from the 2018 State Farm Classic:

 Lady Potter State Farm Holiday Classic Highlights

 

The Lady Potters played very well at times, in each of the games at the SFHC, but struggled putting together 4 strong quarters of team basketball.  In their first game vs. Wheaton Warrenville South, the Potters struggled to get the ball in the basket in the 1st quarter, but raced out to a large lead through the rest of the game with excellent team basketball.  The Lady Potters were the taller, more athletic, more experienced and better skilled team in this game and cruised to a 50-27 victory and on to the Quarterfinals 

The Potters were bolstered by Maddy Becker’s 7 threes in Game 2, but struggled to rebound the basketball through much of the 1st half vs the much taller and athletic Chicago Simeon team. They were challenged mid-game by Coach Becker to prove they weren’t as soft as they had been playing.  The Lady Potters responded and showed a lot grit and teamwork to pull past this strong Simeon team and into the Semi-final by a score of 64-54.  A side note on Simeon – The Simeon Wolverines are T-A-L-L (TALL).  Seven of their eleven players are listed over 6 foot.  To emphasize this fact to their opponent, the Wolverines enter the gym by running down the court in a single file line and takes turns slapping the back board.  That is something you don’t see every day in a girls high school basketball game.

The Semi-final game vs Union-Ryle (KY) started out great.  The Lady Potters were hitting shots, getting to loose balls and won the first two quarters with great ball movement and good teamwork.  However, about midway through the 3rd quarter the Potters went on a dry spell and the nationally ranked talent from Ryle, Kentucky took advantage of turnovers and missed opportunities by the Lady Potters.  Union-Ryle came into the tournament as the #1 team in Kentucky and #16 ranked team nationally according to MaxPreps.  They showed a little bit of why they are so highly thought of.  They reminded me quite a bit of one of the elite level AAU teams we see in the summer, with their speed, shooting and ball movement.  If you blink against those teams, they will bury you quick.  The Lady Potters stayed within 4 points until late in the game, when they were forced to foul, but weren’t able to get over the hump on this night as the Potters fell 51-62.  Both Simeon and Union Ryle provided great opportunities for our Lady Potters to improve though.  You have to play and compete with teams like that to prepare for a successful post-season. 

So the Lady Potters would advance to the 3rd Place game and face Peoria Richwoods on Championship Day (Day 4).  I heard some disheartened comments from Potter fans about the mid season matchup, but I kind of looked at it as a chance to face those demons that had haunted the Potters for the better part of 2018.  The feel of the game though was not what many expected.  It was not nearly as amped up as a Championship game, though there were quite a few in attendance.  The players on both sides seemed rather relaxed and it started out like a Sunday morning league game, rather than a matchup of two of the best programs in the State.  The Potters jumped out quick and played under control.  They hit some shots, took some shots and played three very solid quarters to take a 16 point lead on the Knights with about 6 minutes left in the game.  Then much like it did the night before against Union-Ryle, the wheels started to come off.  Players didn’t seem on the same page, and turnover, missed free throws, poor decisions and momentum turned against the Potters.  Lindsey Dullard had fouled out, Richwoods was in high frenzy mode and every call seemed to go against the Potters.  Those demons were screaming pretty loud.  However, when it looked like Morton would succumb to the pressure and frenzy, up stepped freshman Katie Krupa, who knocked down two big free throws, with 5.7 seconds left, that left the Knights only a desperation heave at the buzzer. More than anything, there seemed to be a sense of relief when the buzzer sounded.  A collective exhale from the Potter faithful.  

I’ll tell you one thing though, I don’t think 3rd Place ever felt so good to many of these Potters.  Placing 3rd in this year’s 2018 State Farm Holiday Classic is a pretty nice accomplishment, considering the 16 teams that made up this SFHC field.  What 2019 will bring, is anybody’s guess.  I think there is a sense of renewal though in the Lady Potters mindset.  A new opportunity to be the best they can be and take head on the challenges that wait ahead.  Thank you to the State Farm Holiday Classic for the opportunity for improvement.

After going 3-1 at the SFHC, the Lady Potters improve to 15-2 on the season and enter 2019 with a pretty good understanding of what they need to work on the most.  Morton next plays Friday, December 4th at East Peoria, to resume Mid-Illini Conference play.  The Potters currently lead the MI Conference with a 5-0 record.

Morton’s Lady Potters 43, Richwoods 42

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

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

Nervous much, on a scale of 1 to 10?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Camryn,” Krupa said.

“What’d she hit you with?”

“Elbow.”

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

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

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

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

Union Ryle 62, Morton’s Lady Potters 51

Let me vent first. I propose a new IHSA rule. Any fan who believes he is a coach and shouts instructions from the bleachers can be removed from the gym. I propose this rule because tonight I sat five feet in front of a fan who never shut up, as in not ever, not once, not for a minute. His voice was its own thunderstorm. His primary genius advice to the Union players was “BOX OUT!!!” It was delivered at jet-engine decibels with three exclamation points.

He also specialized in “SHOOTER!” And “CORNERS!” And “TWO SHOTS! SHE WAS SHOOTING!!,” at which point I turned to the fan/coach/referee across the aisle and said, “She was thinking of shooting, but she wasn’t shooting, and thinking doesn’t get you two shots,” but by then the fan/coach/referee was back to roaring, “BOX OUT!!!”

How an Union fan/coach/referee wound up sitting in the Morton section is a mystery that I made no attempt to solve. And I hurry to apologize for being grumpy. I long ago decided I should never criticize sports fans. They made my job possible. Sportswriting got me cars and houses and all the golf balls I could hit into all the world’s oceans. But now? Now I’m paid in Milk Duds. Milk Duds just get me fat. I am free to say these fan/coach/referee people are obnoxious to the max. They should be voted off the island and invited back only as prey for venomous creatures.

I suppose my grumpiness rose in direct correlation to the Potters’ problems on the court tonight. Morton led by as many as eight points. It led, 36-30, two minutes into the second half. But even then there were signs of trouble ahead. I made a note that said, “Unwilling to shoot.”

It was strange. Even up by six points and, you’d think, high on a 10-game winning streak that included a thrilling comeback victory the night before, none of the Potters wanted to shoot on this night. Against the Union zone defense, they did little but pass the ball around the edges until, as these pass-pass-pass things inevitably go, someone coughed up a turnover with a careless pass or a fumbling catch.

The Union defense was standard-issue OK, quick and smart and long. It certainly wasn’t aggressive the way Chicago Simeon’s had been or the way Richwoods’ zone will attack Morton’ shooters in today’s third-place game at the State Farm Holiday Classic. The Union defense was just there. Morton’s problem was, its offense wasn’t there. It disappeared. From 36-30 ahead, Morton was beaten, 32-15, in the game’s last 14 minutes.

“Confidence is such a fragile thing,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said afterwards. “If you’re going good, it can be contagious.” (One could remember such a good night. It happened yesterday against Simeon.) “But if you’re not, it can be contagious that way, too.” (One hopes a good night’s sleep will rid the Potters of whatever loss-of-confidence bug moved through the team tonight.)

Truth is, the Potters played superbly for about a minute tonight. From 5:07 of the first quarter to 3:56, they went on a 12-0 run for a 14-7 lead. At that point, it seemed to be Morton’s kind of game – a real basketball game played by real basketball players, done smoothly and elegantly in contrast to the Morton-Simeon mud-rasslin’ match the night before. The run began with three straight 3-pointers – by Courtney Jones, Tenley Dowell, and Lindsey Dullard. It ended with Dowell’s and-one on a slash to the basket.

So that’s good. The Potters had scored 12 points in one minute and 11 seconds. But there’s really bad in that: in the game’s other 30 minutes and 49 seconds, Union won, 62-39. Yikes.

Union gained a 36-all tie at 3:26 of the third quarter. It took the lead for good at 42-40 in the quarter’s last minute and went up by eight at 48-40 in the fourth. Dullard’s 3-pointer with four minutes left cut the lead to 50-46. But the Potters’ offense again went missing. They scored only twice more as Union consistently outran them from end to end, scoring on breakaway layups and free throws.

Union is now 14-1 for the season. Morton is 14-2.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 16. Dullard had 15, Katie Krupa 11, Peyton Dearing 5, Jones 4.

Morton’s Lady Potters 64, Chicago Simeon 54

How in the world? Did you see that thing? I saw it and I won’t soon forget it. There they were, nine points behind and going the wrong direction. Those big, tough Chicago people were JUST ALL OVER the poor little girls from the pumpkin patches. When what happens? Those poor little girls picked up a John Deere tractor and whacked the Chicago people upside their heads. Or something. You tell me.

I mean, they were nine points down halfway through the third quarter. Nine points is a bunch. Nine points behind a Chicago Simeon team that was big, quick, aggressive, and deep enough that it sent in fresh players five at a time. Only five points up at halftime, Simeon moved up 39-30 in the first three minutes of the third quarter – a time that Morton’s coach, Bob Becker, always cites as critical to establishing just who’s in charge here.

So, uh-oh. Trouble in a quarterfinal game for the third-seeded Potters defending their 2017 State Farm Holiday Classic championship. Trouble against a sixth-seeded team about to run the champs out of the gym. When what happens? Bob Becker calls a timeout.

I made notes of earlier timeouts. One word appeared in two of those early-game notes. The word was “irate.” Becker wore a red shirt. His face was redder. He didn’t like it that Simeon’s rebounders got every rebound at both ends. Coaches really get disturbed by that. It was as if Simeon got three shots every time down. That, coaches really dislike. Loose balls in the paint, Simeon got ‘em. Irate, on the way to volcanic. “Right now,” Becker once shouted to his players and bouncing off ears 10 rows up in the bleachers, “we’re SOFT.” Coaches hate soft.

So, nine points down, Becker calls a timeout with 4:50 left in the third. This time no shouting, a timeout only to remind his team that the roof is falling in. And what happens? Maybe you blinked and missed it. If you stopped to take a breath, you missed it. That bigger, tougher team I mentioned? It turned out to be the Potters. Here’s what happened . . .

They went on a 24-4 run in the next 8 minutes and 3 seconds.

I will wait while you read that again.

Down nine points to a good team beating them severely, the Potters went on a 24-4 run.

Suddenly, they led, 54-43, with just over 5 minutes to play.

Here’s Morton’s scoring in that amazing run: Katie Krupa a layup, Maddy Becker a 3, Tenley Dowell a 3, Dowell two free throws, Courtney Jones a layup (more on that one in a minute), Lindsey Dullard in close, Becker another 3, Becker a put-back rebound (as to when the 5-foot-4 guard last scored on an offensive rebound, she said, “Uh, never?”), Becker yet another 3 (she had 11 points in the run), and Dullard a fast-break layup off a court-length left-handed pass from Dowell over Simeon’s press.

Simeon made one more strong move. It scored the next seven points. Morton’s lead was 54-51 with 3:54 left. When what happens? The best thing all night happened.

Maddy Becker happened. Not that she hadn’t been happening. She made two 3-pointers in the game’s first minute and a half. In the game’s fourth-quarter crunch time, she wanted the ball. “I was feeling it,” she said, “and for some reason I was always open. I wanted to shoot, and . . .” Here, a smile from the coach’s daughter. “I knew I’d get yelled at it if I didn’t shoot.” Best of all, Becker really happened when the Potters needed a champion’s thing to happen. The littlest Potter came up huge. At 3:42, from deep in the left corner, she made her seventh 3-pointer of the night to stop Simeon’s rally.

I will wait again while you read that last sentence. It was not Becker’s third 3 of the game or her fourth or her fifth 3 or even her sixth. It was her seventh. It spoke even more loudly than her father had spoken. It shouted, “Hey, Chicago people, we’re here and we’re not going away. Bring it on.”

Simeon caved. The Becker 3 began a 10-3 run that ended only at the buzzer.

Back to that 24-4 run for a second. Every bucket mattered. But one gave Morton the lead for the first time since the first quarter. It came when Courtney Jones heard someone call for “fist,” the Potters’ code word for a trap on the ball-handler. In the last seconds of the third quarter, Dowell forced Simeon’s star, Jada Thorpe, to back up near the midcourt line. She turned her left and here came Jones from Thorpe’s blindside. Jones simply took the ball off the dribble – just reached in with both hands and took it — and sprinted down-court, the only question being if she could score before time expired.

“I saw there were 7.6 seconds left,” Jones said later.

No problem. Her layup at :04 gave Morton the lead, 42-41, and it never trailed again.

Becker led Morton’s scoring with 23. Dowell had 17, Dullard 9, Krupa 7, Jones 5, and Raquel Frakes 3.

Last season and this, as his team has won 45 of 48 games, Bob Becker’s one niggling concern has been about “grit.” Did this team have the competitive will of some previous Potters’ teams? If the victory over Simeon is not a definitive answer to that question, it will do for the moment. Now on a ten-game winning streak and 14-1 for the season, the Potters play a semifinal game tonight against second-seeded Union (Ky.) Ryle.

Oh, one more thing. Becker didn’t think he had been irate in those early-game timeouts during which the word “soft” was spoken loudly. With a smile: “I’d say I was ‘firm.’ I told them I didn’t have time to coddle them. Let’s say I ‘challenged’ them. It was now or never.”