Normal Community 58, Morton’s Lady Potters 49

Ten minutes after this one, the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, was thinking 12 days ahead.

“I believe we can win the regional,” he said. “We can find a way to beat Central on their home floor.”

Let’s play this out. First presume that Morton beats Richwoods in its regional opener on Feb. 14. Then, three days later, say the Potters find a way to beat Peoria Central at Peoria Central (though last month they lost to Peoria Central at Peoria Central by nine points). A victory over #1 seed Peoria Central would give Morton the regional championship and establish the Potters as favorites to win the LaSalle-Peru sectional and move on to the supersectional at Romeoville where a victory would send them to Redbird Arena as one of the last four teams standing.

Yes, yes, oh my yes, I know, forgive me, that last sentence there is one gigantic pot of supposin’, let’s-sayin’; and wishin’ upon a star.

But, look. Remember when America’s darling, Julia Roberts, lost her mind for a minute and married the weird-haired country singer Lyle Lovett? Since then, I have believed that ANYTHING can happen.

So there is that. And Becker saw enough good in today’s defeat to say, “I don’t believe in ‘moral victories,’ but I said to the team afterward, ‘Why would we play them?'”

The game against Normal Community was a last-minute improvisation when both Normal and Morton lost scheduled opponents and scrambled for a game that would help prepare them for the post-season. Morton might have searched for a cupcake victory; instead, Becker wanted a test.

“We played them because they’re a good team, they’re a 4A state-ranked team,” he said. The Lady Iron would be a real test, a team with a 20-6 record in the state’s highest level of competition. It’s also a team good enough to have Peoria Central beaten, only to lose by a point when it missed on the front end of a one-and-bonus with 1.3 seconds to play. That was a week ago.

“And after their terrific start today,” Becker said, “we won the last three quarters.”

Seventeen seconds into the second quarter, Normal Community had made seven 3-pointers, one a minute after they made their first one. (They made only two more all day.) At that point, they led, 24-13. Becker’s silver-lining math, then, was correct. From there on, Morton outscored the winners, 36-34.

In fact, from that 11-point deficit Morton found a way to get the lead at 36-35 midway through the third quarter. The Potters did it with a 10-0 run achieved in a minute and a half. Katie Krupa started it at 4:04 with four straight free throws earned on shooting fouls. Tatym Lamprecht and Ellie VanMeenen followed with a pair of 3’s from the left side to give Morton the lead at 2:34 of the third quarter.

Normal Community took the lead back immediately, never again trailing. It sealed the victory with six straight points when Morton’s offense — fitful at best on a day of turnovers galore — went totally silent from 5:30 of the fourth to 1:37. As Morton has done to so many teams in the last seven years, Normal Community closed the deal with a ball-control offense that produced eight free throws in the last minute.

“We just gifted them points at the end,” Becker said. “Gifted them! That CANNOT happen.”

In those last 5 1/2 minutes, profiting from Morton’s failures, Normal Community outscored the Potters,14-7.

Krupa led Morton’s scoring with 16, VanMeenen had 14, Maggie Hobson 11, Izzy Hutchinson 5, and Lamprecht 3.

Now 22-5, the Potters close their regular season Tuesday at the Potterdome with a Mid-Illini Conference game against Limestone. Victory would give the Potters a share of their seventh straight Mid-Illini championship. The Peoria regional starts the next Tuesday.

Morton’s Lady Potters 50, Pekin 35

In this OUCH-iest of Lady Potters seasons, four injured players were in their warmups on the bench for Pink Night tonight. Paige Griffin and Addy Engel, both of whom had been in the team’s starting lineup, are out for the season. And now we see Maria Lopko and Magda Lopko sidelined as well. The list of injuries includes broken bones, a stress fracture, sprained shoulder, and a lower vertebra inflammation.

And where, pray tell, was Graci Junis?

In her hospital room.

Because there was more than enough snow to go sledding, the Lady Potters organized a play day Wednesday in the hills of Morton’s Northwoods Park. Too soon, the play day became a bad day. Junis ran her sled into a tree and suffered internal injuries. A 911 call brought paramedics to the park. They carried Junis to a Peoria hospital where she was in intensive care today.

A starter as a freshman and a top reserve of late, Junis came to the Potterdome tonight but only by the magic of FaceTime.

“Graci wanted to be included in the pre-game talk,” senior Maggie Hobson said.

So the Potters dialed her up for coach Bob Becker’s talk before sending them out against Pekin. If Becker’s mission tonight was to fire ’em up and forget Saturday’s last-second loss to Metamora, the Potters can say mission accomplished.

“We bounced back from a really tough loss,” Katie Krupa said. The senior all-stater, tonight’s leading scorer with 19 points, might have been echoing Becker’s post-game talk. He said, “Teams with a good pedigree will bounce back. The girls responded tonight.”

Pekin is a second-division Mid-Illini team that lost to the Potters at home a month ago, 55-35. Tonight was not much different as the Potters went on an 25-8 run to move from 9-7 down in the first quarter to a 32-17 lead early in the third. The run included the kind of offense the Potters need consistently. They got four 3-pointers, two by Ellie VanMeenen, one each by Hobson and Tatym Lamprecht. And Krupa not only dominated in the paint, she also added a 14-footer to show no one can give her that shot for free. Defensively, the Potters were so good that Pekin’s only real offense was to back up, to back way way up, and hurl a prayer skyward. Of their 12 field goals, nine were 3-pointers, and my guess is they put up at least 9 airballs from out there and were 9-for-35 or worse overall.

Now the Potters are 22-4 for the season and 11-2 in the Mid-Illini. By beating Limestone in the Potterdome next Tuesday, they can claim at least a share of their seventh straight regular-season conference championship. (I’m saying the Covid-abbreviated 2020-21 season didn’t happen.)

Saturday, in a change of schedule, the Potters play at Normal Community at 2:30. The Lady Iron are 20-6 overall, with a victory at Washington and a one-point loss to Peoria Central. A good test for the Potters before beginning regional play in 10 days (opening against Richwoods with that winner most likely playing Peoria High in the regional final).

After Krupa’s 19 tonight came Lamprecht with 15 (including two rebound buckets). Hobson had 6, VanMeenen 5, Paige Chapin 3, and Lydia Rogers 2.

Best of all on this Pink Night, through their fund-raising efforts, the Lady Potters were able to write a check for $22,000 to the Illinois Cancer Care Foundation.

1. Thank you to all who made Pink Night 2022 happen! The Lady Potters raised over $22,000 for Illinois Cancer Care Foundation & beat Pekin to improve their season record to  22-4 / 11-2.

Hail #4! Hail #13!

Metamora 38, Morton’s Lady Potters 35

So much to like about tonight, Chandler Ryan in the house, Brandi Bisping embracing her, the two icons sitting at midcourt, feeling applause sent down on them when they took their places in Potters history.

No one will wear Ryan’s #4 again, and no one will wear Bisping’s #13 again. Their numbers are not officially retired. The official language says their “jerseys” are retired, as if old and tattered, sent to the laundry, never to be seen again. Still, before tonight’s ceremony, the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said he would never again order a #4 or a #13 (that #13 is now doubly retired, first worn by Brandi’s sister, Brooke). And it’s good we’ll never see those numbers again, because #4 and #13 were the heart and soul of four state championship teams. They should stand alone, undiminished.

Ryan came up from her home in Florida, Bisping came down from Milwaukee, both graduates of Division 1 basketball programs, and it was wonderful to see them both, young and happy, in the Potterdome bleachers tonight.

Too bad they couldn’t un-retire their jerseys for an hour or so.

As efficient as the Potters were two nights earlier in an 18-point victory over Washington, they were careless at both ends tonight.

“What’d we have, 20 turnovers?” Becker said. “Every time they gave us a chance, we threw it away.” He spoke of the game in its entirety, but those words fit perfectly the Potters’ third-quarter play. Hard to believe, but the Potters scored only 5 points in the first quarter and 6 in the second to fall behind, 20-11. Maybe Metamora’s defense was that good. Could have been. Still, of Morton’s 20 (or more?) turnovers, too many were unforced, the result of poor ballhandling.

But that third quarter — Metamora’s worst. It had one field goal the first 6 1/2 minutes. And yet it maintained that nine-point halftime lead, going into the fourth quarter up 29-20.

Only then did Morton make a run. Down 35-28 with 4:29 to play, the Potters scored the game’s next seven points for a 35-all tie.

They did it this way: Ellie VanMeenen made a 3-pointer from the left corner at 4:09. At 2:39, Katie Krupa scored down low off a great Tatym Lamprecht pass. In the last minute, the Potters had a chance to take the lead. First, down 35-33, Izzy Hutchinson made a steal at mid-court with 1:20 left. On that possession, Morton somehow won two scrambles for offensive rebounds and moved the ball to Krupa at the free throw line. Her 17-footer tied the game with 37 seconds to play. Until that point, Metamora had led all the way.

Unfortunately, Morton never touched the ball again.

Holding for one shot, Metamora was able to avoid being sent to the free throw line. Just as important, it was also able to control time by calling two timeouts, the first with 23 seconds left, the second with 11.8 seconds on the clock.

Out of the second timeout, Metamora worked the ball into the paint and to the deep left corner where Alyssa Russell was unguarded.

“I felt confident the whole game,” Russell said later. “It was designed to go to the post, and she kicked it out to me. It was a good shot.”

She made the 3-pointer with :03 showing on the clock.

Morton was given a timeout at :01.4, meaning that perhaps a second was lost in the frenzy. The Potters then failed to connect on a long in-bounds pass and time expired.

The defeat left the Mid-Illini Conference race up for grabs with a week to play. Morton is 21-4 overall and 10-2 in the league with both losses to Metamora, 19-3, 8-2. Washington is 19-4, 9-2.

Krupa led Morton’s scoring with 15. Izzy Hutchinson had 9, VanMeenen 5, Lamprecht 3, Maggie Hobson 3.

On Saturday, January 29, 2022, the Morton Lady Potters will recognize & celebrate the careers & accomplishments of former star players Chandler Ryan & Brandi Bisping. There will be a ceremony prior to the home varsity game vs Metamora and the jerseys of these two outstanding players will be permanently displayed in the PotterDome alongside legendary Morton Lady Potters Tracy Pontius, Brooke Bisping & Cindy Baumgarner!

Here is summary of their career basketball highlights:

Morton’s Lady Potters 46, Washington 28

Izzy Hutchinson did not score. She was a star.

Ellie VanMeenen scored twice. She was a star.

Maggie Hobson, star.

Tatym Lamprecht, star.

Katie Krupa Katie Krupa!, star.

Graci Junis, off the bench, star.

At the Potterdome tonight, they were all stars in a game for undisputed first place in the Mid-Illini Conference.

Izzy Hutchinson’s in-your-face defense against Washington’s best scorer baffled that girl, who once put up a 3 that hit the top edge of the board and, for the night, scored 7 points, none in the decisive last 15 minutes. . . . freshman Ellie VanMeenen’s two buckets were 3-pointers and six of Morton’s 14 points in the first half. . . . Maggie Hobson and Tatym Lamprecht — the Potters’ “Splash Sisters,” only with ponytails — made five 3-pointers in the second half and 25 of 34 second-half points . . . Graci Junis did a reserve’s dirty work of rebounding and defense when it must be done. . . .and Katie Krupa, besides presenting a constant offensive threat (13 points), blocked so many shots that a Washington star went up for a 3-point shot and, once up there, saw Krupa closing on her, and decided, “#$%&,” (or however a teenage girl might express excruciating dismay) and came down without the ball ever leaving her trembling hand. Traveling. It happened with two minutes and 10 seconds to play and Morton up 42-25.

It was Washington’s ultimate concession of embarrassing defeat. It was also the Potters’ declaration that they expect good things to come.

“One of the funnest games I’ve ever played,” Hobson said. “It’s only up from here.”

“So fun,” Lamprecht said. “The best we’ve been all year.”

“One hundred percent TEAM,” Krupa said..

“We played our tail off from beginning to end,” the coach, Bob Becker, said. “Everybody was locked on completely. We are on an upswing.”

Coaches like to talk up “team” victories. They’ll say, sure, the STAR scored a bajillion but, hey, don’t forget the moms’ bang-up job on laundry this week. Tonight, trust me, the Lady Potters created a spectacular TEAM victory. Washington came in with a 19-4 record and had lost to the Potters by a point five weeks ago.

Morton’s defense was sensational, proactive, aggressive, smart. For a half, that seemed that might be enough to win. In the first quarter alone, the Potters’ defense left Washington with nowhere to go. The visitors made four turnovers, put up three airballs, had a 3-pointer blocked, and one poor girl twisted herself into such a pretzel as to throw a shot UP into the net.

Still, the Potters won this one when their offense did what their offense can do — strike quickly and often.

The first strike came from Tatym Lamprecht. The junior guard scored 11 points in five minutes of the third quarter to move Morton from a 14-10 lead to 25-16. She did it with 3 from the left corner, a driving floater high off the board, and two more 3’s — done 18 seconds apart. “When I make 1 or 2, I feel really good,” she said.

Then it was Maggie Hobson’s turn. The senior guard’s successive 3’s only 35 seconds apart opened the lead to 38-23. (Add it up. Four of the Hobson-Lamprecht 3’s came in a total of 53 seconds.)

“I told you,” Krupa said, telling us again, “when defenses come on me, we can get it to Maggie and Tatym.”

The victory raised Morton’s overall record to 21-3 and moved it at 10-1 past Washington and Metamora into first place in the Mid-Illini. Washington is now 9-2 in the league, and Metamora, upset tonight by Dunlap, is also 9-2. Metamora will be Morton’s next opponent, Saturday night in the Potterdome.

Hobson led Morton’s scoring tonight with 14. Krupa and Lamprecht had 13 each. VanMeenen had the other 6.

Morton’s Lady Potters 61, Canton 39

Everything Katie Krupa did tonight was done beautifully, even the knocked-on-her-butt things, or maybe especially those things, for what she did a couple dozen times was get up and say, like, “Is that all ya got?”

She took it to the rim. She scored off the glass from a foot and from three feet. She scored on the run with either hand. She stepped back from the crowd once and scored from 17 feet. She scored when fouled and she scored when no one could match her speed in the paint. She scored from everywhere except the popcorn stand and that’s only because she didn’t want any popcorn. Tonight she was beastly beautiful.

Career high 29 points, and she played a minute in the fourth quarter.

Free throws, 13 for 13, which makes 29 for 30 in the last three games, 35 for 36 going back to a fourth game.

Rebounds, all of ’em that mattered.

“Katie’s being double- and triple-teamed,” her coach, Bob Becker, said, “and she’s even scoring on those.”

As Becker spoke, we stood on the Canton court maybe 50 feet from the Potters’ locker room.

“The kids are having fun now,” he said. “Hear ’em in there?”

Sounded like (from what movies have taught me) a slumber party gone raucous…..

And why not? They’re now 20-3, they’re 9-1 in the Mid-Illini, they’ve lost to a very good Peoria High team and proved resilient enough a week later to win two hard games in the Galesburg tournament against 17-victory teams and tonight bounce along Route 24 to Canton and bounce the Little Giants to sleep.

Besides all that, their coach, Becker, famously hard to please as all Hall of Fame coaches are hard to please, was pleased on the way to being seriously pleased and smilingly delighted.

“I like where we are,” he said. “The kids played really hard tonight. We’re going in the right direction with a big week coming up.” Thursday the Potters play Metamora, the only Mid-Illini team to beat them this season. Saturday, they play Washington. Mid-Illini games don’t get bigger than those.

In a minute here, we’ll get back to Katie Krupa Katie Krupa! But first, let me say my favorite moment of the night did not involve her at all.

It went like this. Graci Junis wanted the damned ball and a Canton girl made the mistake of thinking she could win a wrestling match against Junis. Nope. Junis ripped the ball away and the two of them went ker-lumph at the Canton end. That started a pile-up in the paint, for here came the Potters’ Izzy Hutchinson throwing herself on top of the Junis/Canton heap. What a kerfuffle it was (whatever a kerfuffle is) and it caused the basketball to squirt sideways a couple feet and here came Maggie Hobson speeding into the wreckage on a white horse (really) to scoop up the ball and head up a stampede toward the Morton end where . . .

(Pausing for breath.)

. . . she skidded to a halt at the free throw line extended and dropped a pass to Tatym Lamprecht, who’d caught a taxi down the right side (I think) and went up for one of her pretty-as-a-rainbow 3-pointers that . . .

(Of course.)

… BANG!

And the Potters’ lead, 18-16 a minute earlier, was on a fast track to 37-21. Turn out the lights, Canton, party’s over.

Anyway, when Katie Krupa Katie Krupa! came out of the locker room, I asked her where she hurt, for surely she hurt in multiple locations, having been double- and triple-hammered all night long.

“What do you mean, ‘hurt’?’ she said.

Of course she said that.

“I’m good,” she said.

She’d been struck above the right eye by a Canton body part, an elbow maybe. She’d been hurled onto her back and shoved down against a goal support. She’d been upside-down and right-side up and the most she’d say about all that is that, well, yeah, her neck did kinda hurt, but for nothing Canton did.

“Coach got kind of excited, I guess,” she said, and when she came out of the game for good, Becker thought to praise her with a coach’s slap of appreciation that turned her head on its swivel. She laughed. “I don’t think he realized how strong he is.”

Like Becker, Katie Krupa Katie Krupa! is feeling good about the way the Potters are playing.

“If I can’t get to the basket,” she said, the double- and triple-teaming tactics give her chances to make passes. “We’ve got great shooters in Maggie and Tatym, and great attackers in Izzy and Ellie (VanMeenen). It’s a big week coming up, and we’re ready.”

Her 29 points led Morton’s scoring tonight. Hobson had 10, Lamprecht 9, Anja Ruxlow 5, Hutchinson 4, Junis 2, Emilia Miller 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 54, Lincoln 45

The Potters 54 again, Galesburg 33

Who knows what this means in the long run, and who really cares, because what it means right now is that these Lady Potters can beat anybody at any time.

“A turning point,” Katie Krupa called it, and if Katie Krupa wants to call it a turning point, who are we to argue?

“The post-season is going to be crazy,” she said, and if it’s crazy she sees coming, bring on crazy.

Right now, what Katie Krupa wants, Katie Krupa gets.

“She dominated,” Bob Becker said, and in case the hard of hearing didn’t catch the drift, the Potters’ coach went to upper-case letters with an exclamation point, “She was DOMINANT!”

Let’s ride the way-back machine to January 24, 2015, a time before the Lady Potters had won one state championship, let alone four. They were just another really good team when they came to Galesburg for their two-games-in-a-day part of the Galesburg High School’s annual Winter Classic tournament.

That day became a turning point. Yes, the same words we heard from Katie Krupa today. Already pretty sure of themselves, the Potters that day, led by Chandler Ryan and Brandi Bisping, won easily against two legendary Illinois powers, Quincy Notre Dame and Galesburg. They won each game by 16 points — about what the Potters did today in beating good Lincoln and Galesburg teams by 9 and 19. They’re now 19-3 with six regular season games left before “crazy” begins.

After those games seven years ago, the endearingly-confident-an-inch-away-from-unbearably-cocky Chandler Ryan predicted a state championship.

“We’re winning the rest of our games,” she said.

“That’d make you 33-3,” I said. “I’m writing it down.”

Ryan said, “Good.”

That turning-point day in 2015 was extraordinary for Ryan’s prediction but became nearly unbelievable for what Brandi Bisping did. Of all of Bisping’s sensational work in leading the Potters to the 2015 state championship (and the ’16 and ’17), she was never better than on that day. She scored 27 in the first game, 29 in the second. She made 15-of-18 field goal tries and 19 of 20 free throws. (Yes, 38 shots taken, 34 made.)

I never expected to see anything like it again.

And then today came Katie Krupa. The 6-foot-1 senior all-stater scored 52 points, 24 in the first game, 28 in the second. She was 16 for 17 at the free throw line. I didn’t keep track of her field goal attempts, but when she scored the Potters’ first 14 points against Galesburg, her five field goals came at point-blank range, low in the paint, right where Becker wanted them. In fact, when Krupa missed a couple in there, even with a 17-6 lead late in the first quarter, Becker chose to remind his star she shouldn’t do that. He sent in a reserve and left a seat open near him for Krupa. “That’s what a bench is for,” the coach said.

She sat there a minute or two.

Then the quarter ended, and about 30 seconds into the second quarter, Becker turned to face Krupa and said, in the way coaches say things to which they want a positive response, “READY?” His tone suggested three or four ????s at the end of that not-really-a-question-but-an-order.

Well, of course, she was ready, for she’d been ready all day on a day when she made sure the Potters would trail one time and one time only and that time for only 25 seconds, behind Lincoln, 13-11. In Krupa’s first two minutes back against Galesburg, she scored four points in a 10-point run that left Galesburg forever behind, 32-14.

“Maybe she’d individually ‘settled’ by then,” Becker said of his wake-up call. “But she can be dominant and that’s what we need, to just keep pounding away inside with her.”

Krupa said, “Coach was pushing me because he didn’t want me settling. Everybody was doing a great job of getting the ball in to me, and I had to take it to the rim or draw a foul and get to the line.”

Wait. One more thing. Guess what happens next Saturday night at the Potterdome?

Remember how today’s game reminded us of that game seven years ago?

Saturday night, the Potters will retire the jerseys of Chandler Ryan and Brandi Bisping.

Lord, how time flies when you’re having fun.

Morton’s scoring today against Lincoln: Krupa 24, Tatym Lamprecht 14, Maggie Hobson 10, Izzy Hutchinson 6.

Against Galesburg: Krupa 28, Hobson 11, Hutchinson 7, Ellie VanMeenen 6, Magda Lopko 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 57, East Peoria 15

With just over a minute left in the first half, here came Graci Junis to wake me up.

Not that I was dozing off or anything, but the score was 24-7 on its way to whatever Morton wanted it to be.

Junis is a 5-foot-8 sophomore, a star on the school’s regional-champion volleyball team this season. I know nothing about volleyball. I didn’t need to know much to like what I saw of Junis in the Potters’ sectional volleyball loss to Washington. I saw a good jumper who was quick and aggressive at the net. Those strengths suggested she’d be an important basketball player this season. She was, after all, a starter in the Covid-abbreviated 2020-21 season.

“I just lost it somehow after volleyball,” she said tonight, mystified that she’d become a reserve playing mostly on the jayvee team. She said coach Bob Becker and his assistant, Dakota Neisen, “sat me down and said, ‘You got it in you, Graci,’ and talked about ‘competitive fire.'”

So here’s a happy note I made late in the second quarter tonight . . .

“Graci RE 1:25 !!! flying in from left and up with it”

And two possessions later . . .

“Graci again RE at buzzer”

The Potters, coming off a hard loss to Peoria High last weekend, could not have expected to prove much tonight. They’re now 17-3 for the season and lead the Mid-Illini Conference at 8-1. East Peoria is 1-17, 0-8.

Bob Becker came out of his team’s locker room smiling. “Happy to be back in the Potterdome,” he said.

His team had not played at home since Dec. 11. Eleven straight road games, three of them losses.

The coach then said, “The first half, we really got on the offensive glass — Graci came flying! It was fun to see her playing like that. She just had to find her competitive fire. We talked to her about it, and tonight she cut loose.”

Morton scored the game’s first 13 points and led after a quarter, 21-5. It was 31-7 at the half, 49-13 after three, and then came the merciful running clock.

The breather precedes what promises to be a testing Saturday in Galesburg. As part of Galesburg High’s annual Winter Classic, the Potters play Lincoln at 1:30 and Galesburg at 6.

Katie Krupa led Morton’s scoring tonight with 14. Tatym Lamprecht (two 3’s) and Ellie VanMeenen (three 3’s) had 12 points each. Izzy Hutchinson scored 5, Paige Chapin and Junis 4 each, Maggie Hobson and Emilia Miller 3 each. (Paige Griffin, the starting point guard all season, suffered two fractures in her right wrist at Peoria High and will not play again. Addy Engel, also a starter, remains out with a back injury; her return is uncertain.)

Peoria High 41, Morton’s Lady Potters 32

Meechie Edwards, the Peoria High coach, is my favorite sideline coach, mostly because I can hear him loud and clear, like, FROM A MILE AWAY!

But not tonight. We were in the presence of a new, mild-mannered Meechie.

“Our team motto this year is ‘Have fun.’ he said. “We’re living in a tough world. So even I’m toning it down.”

Also, he said, laughing, “My back’s sore.”

Also, as he did not say, it’s more fun to be on the laughing side of the scoreboard — especially against Morton. Not only are the Potters winners of four of the last six 3A state championships, they had defeated Peoria High five straight times, most recently two years ago by 22 points in a sectional tournament game.

But I hurry to say that every Potters victory over Peoria has been hard-won. Meechie’s teams have come at Morton hyper-aggresssively at both ends, asking no quarter, giving none.

The difference tonight, Peoria’s offense was as good as its defense. That’s because sophomore guard Aaliyah Guyton is fabulous with the ball. Need a step-back 3? Call Guyton. Her 20 points included 4 3’s, each put up more quickly and more smoothly than the last. Need a floater in the paint, using the board? She did that tonight, too. An old-timer in the Morton crowd (me) remembered another mercurial guard, one from a decade ago, Springfield High’s Zahna Medley. She’d break a defenders’ ankles with a cross-over dribble this time, next time she’d drop in a rainbow from 25 feet. (Medley went on to be Texas Christian University’s all-time leading scorer.)

Like many Potters games this season, this one was decided in the third quarter. And decided for them in a decidedly disappointing way.

Peoria led at halftime, 21-15, with Guyton scoring 15.

Then Peoria won the third quarter, 11-2.

Yes, Peoria 11, Morton 2.

Two points. As in one more than one. As in a Katie Krupa layup halfway through the quarter. By quarter’s end, Peoria led, 32-17.

Morton coach Bob Becker explained it this way: “In the third quarter. we freaked out. We lost our poise and composure.”

No coach whose team comes into a game 15-2 and ranked No. 2 in state 3A likes to hear such things said, and most certainly doesn’t want to hear them said by himself.

Becker went on, biting off more distasteful words. “We lost it between the ears.”

Did he say all that in the locker room to his players?

“Yes.”

The only consolation, small indeed, was Morton’s resilience in the fourth quarter. It went on a 13-4 run — featuring its only two 3-pointers of the night, both by freshman Ellie VanMeenen — to close the Peoria lead to 36-30 with 1:52 to play.

“We didn’t give up,” Becker said. “We got it to six.”

By then, Peoria had gone to a ball-control offense, basically toying with the Potters, playing keep-away, asking Guyton to extend her magic to a dribbling act that more than once saw her leave all five Potters wondering where she would be seen next. Morton scored once more as Peoria closed out with four free throws.

Peoria, ranked No. 5 in 3A, is now 14-3. “A great game,” Meechie Edwards said. “It does feel really good, after what they’ve done to us the last three, four years.”

Krupa and VanMeenen each had 10 points for the Potters. Izzy Hutchinson and Maggie Hobson each had 5. Tatym Lamprecht had 2.

The Morton High School Lady Potters are excited to partner with Braker’s Market in Eureka for the 1st time to help raise support for the girls basketball program. We will be selling their delicious cinnamon rolls, and you definitely don’t want to miss out!! This year, we will be selling the cinnamon rolls over the course of 2 nights from 5-8:30p (January 27th & 29th)! The cinnamon rolls will be sold for $10 or 2 for $18. They are great fresh or after being frozen! They can be picked up at the concession stand, by the gym entrance with canopy doors. If you have any questions, would like to order several or have any “held”, please contact Libby Swearingen at (309) 696-7182. Thanks!

Morton’s Lady Potters 48, Dunlap 30

Declan Rush was at a basketball game tonight for the first time in his life, and the question is, what in the world took so long? He is, after all, nine and a half months old.

Yes, the Potters played tonight at Dunlap. They won easy. And I’ll get to that. But right now, I’m gonna write about the baby.

Those darling little Nike shoes!

That “Morton” shirt!

There I was, flipping pages of a notebook, when Brooke Rush, the Potters’ all-time leading scorer as Brooke Bisping, asked, “Want to hold him?”

Oh my goodness, Brooke, I want to KEEP him!

After the game, Declan set foot on a basketball court for the first time. He set both feet on the court. And both hands. All the teenage Potters gathered to watch Declan crawl the baseline. Brooke had been the team’s assistant coach until motherhood and Covid intervened. Done working the baseline, Declan made a turn into the paint, maybe looking for a pass from mommy.

That baby is impossibly cute, exactly what we’d expect from a child with Brooke the mother and Tommy Rush the father, and, yes, I have now committed cuteness overload, and I will get to the basketball game and say the Potters were OK but nowhere near Declan in the cuteness department.

They were OK for 14 minutes, good enough to go on a 28-2 run that suggested they finally had achieved the consistent excellence that coach Bob Becker preaches — except, no, they hadn’t done that at all. Though playing with its leading scorer on the bench with an ankle injury, Dunlap used a full-court press to create a run of its own. Making three steals before Morton could get the ball across the mid-court line, Dunlap outscored the careless-with-the-ball Potters, 12-0, in five minutes.

What should have been a 40-point lead for the Potters — they once led, 36-9 — dwindled to a 13-point lead with two minutes to play.

“At times we played at a high level,” Becker said, “but other times we lacked focus and execution and intensity. It was disheartening.”

In that 28-2 run, six Potters scored. They scored on mid-range jumpers, on put-backs, on transition fast breaks, and on four 3-pointers. Inside that long run, by the way, Dunlap was shut out in the second quarter, 16-0, which was — maybe Declan even thought this — less a tribute to the Potters’ defense than evidence of Dunlap’s mediocrity with the ball in hand.

The victory raised Morton’s record to 16-2 (7-1 in the Mid-Illini Conference). Dunlap is now 9-11 and 4-4.

For the 16th time, Katie Krupa led Morton’s scoring. She had 21 points, every rebound she wanted, and enough blocked shots to discourage anyone wandering into the paint. Maggie Hobson, back from Covid, had 7 points, Tatym Lamprecht 6, Izzy Hutchinson 5, Ellie VanMeenen 4, Paige Griffin 3, Graci Junis 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 55, East Peoria 22

I stayed home with the kitten, too cold for old folks and babies.

Assigned a spy to East Peoria High School’s gym.

Spy’s first report: “M 17-0 at mask timeout.”

“29-8 at 4:44 of 2d. Ellie VanMeenen 10 pts, Tatym Lamprecht 9, Katie Krupa 8.”

“Lots of great steals and passing.”

“Katie razzle dazzle behind the back pass to Tatym for 2. Even EP students oohed.”

(A veteran courtsider chipped in, “Bob Cousyesque.”)

“37-9 half.”

“49-11 mask break 3rd, full subs.”

“55-22 final. By quarters 21-8, 37- 9, 51-16, 55-22. Fun night.”

Morton now 15-2 for the season, 6-1 in the Mid-Illini. East Peoria is 1-13, 0-6.

Lamprecht led Morton’s scoring with 17. Krupa 16, VanMeenen 10, Graci Junis 4, Izzy Hutchinson 4, Abbey Pollard 2, Maria Lopko 2. (Two starters out. Maggie Hobson, Covid-19. Addy Engel, back injury.)

Morton’s Lady Potters 60, Limestone 42

About 2 o’clock today, a dental assistant named Caitlynn told me, “If the tooth is sensitive to this, let me know.”

She thought to remove a temporary cap by using an instrument one shade smaller than the Vise Grips your auto mechanic uses to remove a catalytic converter.

As she came into my mouth with that evil tool . . . (Oh, I overstate. It was probably a finely-milled, titanium, state-of-the-art tool that just looks evil to the untrained eye) . . . As she squeezed on the cap, I said,”Urgmshet,” perhaps not that clearly, and she took that to mean we ought to numb it up. “Before,” she said, “you go flying through the ceiling.”

Yea, verily, let’s numb it up real numb.

I thought of that moment during the first quarter tonight. Bob Becker returned to work as the Lady Potters’ coach. He’d missed the State Farm Holiday Classic with Covid-19. Against a Limestone team that came in with a 5-10 record (0-4 in the Mid-Illini), the Potters led after a quarter by the inglorious score of 8-7.

You want pain? Give Bob Becker 8 points in the first quarter against a mediocrity.

I wrote down what I heard him say from the sidelines during play in those early minutes. He said them in all-caps with any number of exclamation points.

“REBOUND!”

‘SCORE THE BALL!”

“DRIVE IT AND SCORE!!”

“TOO MUCH DRIBBLING!!!”

“FINISH IT!!!!”

Whether these coaching imprecations had any effect, who knows? Circumstantial evidence suggests a powerful effect. The Potters scored 20 points in the second quarter, 20 more in the third, and led by 29 points with 6:03 left in the game.

And yet . . . and yet, even as Becker said, “It was fun to be back,” he also said of his Potters, “I don’t know if they enjoyed me being back.” For Becker didn’t become a Hall of Fame coach with four state championships on his resume by being well pleased with inconsistent play against a mediocre team.

“We have to play with a little edge,” he said, which is CoachSpeak for, yeah, it’s nice to be up 29 but it’s nicer to win by 39 than by tonight’s 18.

An 11-0 run early in the second quarter decided this one. Morton led, 11-9, when Emilia Miller made a 15-footer at 6:40. Paige Griffin followed with a 3 from the deep right corner, Katie Krupa converted an Izzy Hutchinson fast-break pass into a layup — the first two of her seven straight points to put the Potters up 22-9.

Limestone hung around, down only 32-22, midway in the third quarter. Another run, this one 10-0, sealed the deal. It began with a Hutchinson 3 from the right corner and ended with a Hutchinson layup three minutes later. “Izzy played wonderfully,” Becker said of the sophomore who started tonight in the absence of senior Maggie Hobson, out with Covid. (Another starter, Addy Engel, left the game in the first minute with a recurrence of pain from a chronic back injury.)

The Potters got that 29-point lead on a rare play — a 4-point play by junior guard Tatym Lamprecht. She was fouled as she made a 3-pointer from the top of the key and added the free throw.

The victory raised the Potters season record to 14-2. They’re 5-1 in the Mid-Illini, and now, with Washington beating Metamora tonight, have a 1/2 game lead in the conference.

Krupa led Morton’s scoring with 22. Lamprecht had 12, Hutchinson 9, and Griffin 6, Miller had 4, Anja Ruxlow 3, Ellie VanMeenen 2, and Maria Lopko 2. (Note: Morton had 8 3’s, divvied up among five players, Lamprecht making 3 herself.)

And I’m happy to add that the rest of the dental visit went without worry. I now have a permanent cap on the tooth that had gone bad. It is safe again to eat Milk Duds, though dentist Dr. Katie, as she freed me from the chair, said, “Wait 30 minutes.”

Morton’s Lady Potters 51, Mother McAuley 26

Dakota Neisen, filling in for Bob Becker at the genius job, looked at the scorebook at halftime. The coach wanted to know how many points Mother McAuley’s #32 had scored. “All of them,” he said, meaning that Isabella Finnegan had made five 3-pointers and outscored the Potters all by herself, 19-17.

So Neisen asked his players, “Who wants her?”

Like, maybe they should start guarding that #32 person.

Katie Krupa raised a hand. “I got her,” she said.

And Isabella Finnegan’s most excellent adventure was over. With Krupa attached at her hip, Finnegan was rendered into spectatorhood. Midway through the third quarter, she scored on a nice slashing drive to the hoop. That was it. Effectively removed from the action — did no genius exist on the McAuley bench? did no one notice she was no longer touching the ball? did no one think to set a screen for her?– the poor girl once was seen standing alone near the midcourt line while her playmates went 4-on-4 against the Potters. Perhaps she took that chance to reminisce about the good ol’ days of the first half. One felt for her. Might not someone at least bring her popcorn?

Meanwhile, the Potters did some good ol’ days stuff themselves. Until Finnegan made a free throw with 2:25 to play– her only other point in the second half — the Potters went on a 29-2 run for a 46-21 lead that guaranteed them the third-place trophy in the State Farm Holiday Classic.

That run calls for a note or two. First, fill-in or not, Neisen did the coach’s job of motivating the Potters in the early minutes of the third quarter. He did that by doing what coaches have long done. Do a silly thing out there, you come sit by me. Three starters committed turnovers in the first two minutes. Neisen’s analysis, delivered out loud: “I’m gonna rotate in whoever is ready to play.” And those starters soon warmed the cushioned seats beside him. Then the game-deciding run started, in the third quarter, like this . . . . .

Krupa a layup-and-one . . . Maggie Hobson a free throw . . . Ellie VanMeenen a 3 from the right corner . . . Tatym Lamprecht a driving layup . . .
Krupa a nice mid-range jumper . . . and Hobson a 3 with 9 seconds left in the third.

It was Morton 31-19, and it was over, and the only mystery came with 5 minutes to play.

That’s when Izzy Hutchinson did whatever she did.

The sophomore had the ball and disappeared from my sight and next thing I knew the ball was rising toward the ceiling and falling through the net.

Here’s my veteran sportswriter note on that event: “Izzy LU (Huh?)”

“I was at the free throw line,” Hutchinson said, “and I went between two girls and one of them hit me on the hip and kinda twisted me around and I kinda went . . .” (Here she did a body language thing that resists translation, other than maybe she thought to throw a hook shot backwards over her right shoulder . . . or something) . . . “and I thought I’d throw it high up on the backboard and hope it went in . . .” (always a good thought) . . “but it didn’t hit the backboard, it hit that little piece of the rim” . . . . (the flat bracket attaching the rim to the board) . . . “and it went in.” . . . (Here, a smile of teenage delight).

That made it 39-21, and my only other play-by-play note worth mention came by way of Maria Lopko, who, you may remember, is a little deep-bench senior entrusted with the orange turkey that is symbol of the team’s commitment to defense. After Krupa and after Hobson and after Paige Griffin and after Addy Engel, the job of defending #32 fell to Maria Lopko.

“Whoa,” Lopko said later. “I go in the last two minutes and I’m in man-deny on her?”

She stayed near enough the star to put a hand on the star to keep track of the star and this hands-on stuff irritated the star so much that the star whacked away the deep-bencher’s pestiferous hand.

“My only job,” Lopko said, “was to not let her catch the ball. I guess she was frustrated.”

Krupa liked the Potters’ work this day. “Reassuring,” she called it, the romp coming not even a full day after Wednesday night’s semifinal loss to Geneseo. “I’m very proud of this team.” As for winning the third-place trophy — a nice thing, a good thing, maybe even an omen thing to the superstitious — Krupa said, “You know about the State Farm ‘curse,’ right?”

No girls team has ever won the State Farm tournament and gone on to win the state championship, not even the Potters, though they’ve won State Farm twice and the state championship four times. So, looking for a positive note to losing, there is that. Don’t win State Farm, win State.

Krupa smiled and exited stage left, eager to get on with whatever’s coming next.

Krupa led the Potters scoring with 12. Lamprecht had 11, Engel 7, Hutchinson 6, Hobson 4, VanMeenen 3, Griffin 3, Gaby Heer 3, and Abbey Pollard 2.
****
Geneseo came from 12 down in the second half to defeat Washington, 52-49, in overtime in the championship game tonight.

Katie Krupa was named to the all-tournament team.