Geneseo 68, Morton’s Lady Potters 51

It was closer than that.

Stunned early by Geneseo’s 24-point first quarter and twice down by as many as 13, the Potters moved within a point late in the third quarter of the State Farm Holiday Classic semifinal game.

“I told my girls Morton’s a state-caliber team and they’re going to come back on us,” the Geneseo coach, Scott Hardison, said. “I told them that if they got close, I’d take a timeout. And then we can come right back at them.”

Came the Morton run. In the first five minutes of the third quarter, they outscored Geneseo 14-6. The move started with an Addy Engel layup off a Krupa pass somehow delivered through three sets of Geneseo arms, for Krupa played heroically tonight, never taking a step except to bring along three Geneseo defenders hacking at her. Despite being outnumbered every time down, Krupa followed with two three-point plays inside. Then came Tatym Lamprecht with a 3 from the left side, followed by a Maggie Hobson 3 from the deep right corner.

Suddenly, Geneseo’s lead was 35-34 with 3:09 left in the quarter. Anything could happen now.

Timeout, Geneseo.

An easy bucket moved the lead to three points.

Then, with a chance to tie, Hobson put up a 3 from the right side, a pretty thing, the only trouble being it was in and out and here came Geneseo flying downcourt, as it did all night, as its coach said it would. They were flying downcourt with the Potters trying to keep up. And eight seconds after Hobson’s miss — eight seconds! one breath, maybe two! — one of Geneseo’s shooters knocked down a 3 of her own, and I’d tell you her name except it doesn’t matter when everybody’s a shooter, and on this night Geneseo’s nine 3’s were made by four different people who went 5-for-6 in the stunning first quarter.

In the third quarter’s last three minutes, Geneseo finished an 11-2 run to put the Potters 10 points down going into the fourth. They never got closer than five the rest of the way as Geneseo’s relentless runners closed the deal with a 10-3 run that included eight free throws.

Wait. Read that last paragraph again. Sound familiar? It should because that’s the way Morton has beaten people for years. Get ’em down with 3’s, go to the line late, get a W.

In fact, everything Geneseo did tonight was a mirror image of Morton’s success in the last decade.

Make 3’s and free throws. Play aggressively with the ball and against the ball.

Now undefeated in 15 games, #4 seeded Geneseo handed top-seeded Morton its second loss in 14 games.

Which brings me to a backstory I love.

Two years ago, Morton defeated Geneseo in this State Farm event, 79-48. Afterwards, I asked Scott Hardison what he thought of the Potters.

He said, “I’ll give you the backstory first.”

On December 27, 2019, he was in his eighth season at Geneseo. He’d had 20-victory seasons, but not success of the Potters’ state-trophies kind. He had lost to Morton in this tournament once before, also by 31 points. So that summer of ’19, he made a phone call.

He called Bob Becker, the Potters’ coach. Said he’d drive down to Peoria. They ate at Tyroni’s Pizza in Bartonville. There Hardison asked, in essence, how is it done, how do you build a program that succeeds at the highest levels?

“Bob was very generous.” Hardison said. “He went through his entire history, the Tracy Pontius teams and on, and that’s the kind of program that we want. In Class 3A basketball, Morton is the model. We’re still building toward that.”

Curious, the way life works out. On this December night, Becker was stuck at home again recovering from Covid-19. And I found Hardison high in the Normal Community bleachers afterward, there to scout his team’s opponent in tomorrow night’s championship game. He wore a mask against the virus. But the mask could not hide his smile.

“We’re trying to build what Morton has,” Hardison said, “not only success but sustained success.”

Lamprecht led Morton’s scoring with 18 (13 in the second half). Krupa had 16 (10 in the second half, meaning she and Lamprecht scored 23 of the team’s 31 second-half points). Hobson had 6, Paige Griffin 5, Ellie VanMeenen 4, Engel 2.

The Potters play Chicago Mother McAuley for third place Thursday at noon at Illinois Wesleyan’s Shirk Center.

Morton Lady Potters 48, Rock Island 35

I once knew a newspaper photographer named Ford Reid. He believed basketball was dull. He proposed changes, among them sliding floors, like in a funhouse. “That would slow people down,” he said. If a team got ahead by 20 points, its basket would move side to side and up and down. He also proposed a Great Arbitrator operating a joystick to control the basketball.

“Imagine guys on a fast break,” my friend said. “A long pass is thrown, but when the ball hits the floor, it just goes dead. Stops. Then, as everybody scrambles for the ball, the Great Arbitrator could make it go straight up in the air and the floor would start moving back and forth. That would put an end to dull basketball.”

Not to say such thoughts crossed my mind tonight during the Potters’ second-round victory in the State Farm Holiday Classic.

However, those thoughts crossed my mind on the way home.

Rock Island put them there. They seldom tried to score. The basket stayed in the same place all night, but the Rocks scored four points in the second quarter and one in the third.

It was not as if the Potters’ defense was sensational. It was OK man-to-man, but nothing sensational, mostly reactive. The Potters watched the Rocks dribble dribble dribble/pass pass pass/stand stand stand. Rock Island did score18 points in the fourth quarter when someone had the wild idea of throwing the ball in the air and hoping the Great Arbitrator would guide it into the hoop. AND HE DID! Rock Island’s three 3’s in the fourth, two in the last minute, gave the illusion of basketball.

For the second night in a row, the #1 seeded Potters, now 12-1 on the season, had a poor first half offensively, leading 22-17 at the intermission. But they didn’t follow up with a 29-point third quarter as they’d done against Bloomington. This time they had a 7-point third quarter, three coming on a Tatym Lamprecht shot in the first 35 seconds. “What were we on 3’s,” Katie Krupa said, “oh-for-17?” The senior all-stater knew better than that — she’d made a 3 herself in the second quarter — but it certainly felt like 0-for-all-night.

The game was decided in one four-minute stretch, a 10-0 run by the Potters. Late in the first half, tied at 17-all, Krupa’s 3-pointer from the top of the key and her little mid-range jumper moved Morton to a 22-17 lead at intermission. Early in the third, Addy Engel’s driving layup followed Lamprecht’s 3 from the left corner to make it 27-17.

With Rock Island content to dribble/pass/stand, the Potters’ lead grew to 39-23 with three minutes to play.

I felt sleepy.

I did stay awake long enough to make notes on my favorite moment of the night. It came late. A Rock Island dribbler fell down. No referee called anything. Had she been tripped by a Potter? Though I was at the far end of the building, I heard the Rock lsland dribbler go, “OOOPS.” A referee took that as circumstantial evidence that she had fallen down all by her ownself. He called traveling. (Though it’s possible, I guess, that she fell when the floor started funhouse-sliding around.)

Krupa led Morton’s scoring with 19. Addy Engel had 10, Lamprecht 6, Paige Griffin and Maggie Hobson 4 each, Izzy Hutchinson 3, and Ellie VanMeenen 2.

Morton’s semifinal opponent tomorrow night at 7 at Normal Community will be #4 seed Geneseo, a 51-48 winner over Springfield.

The Potters’ head coach, Bob Becker, remained at home recovering from Covid-19.

Morton Lady Potters 60, Bloomington 40

I heard the Bloomington coach tonight. Small animals burrowed deeper into the forest on hearing the Bloomington coach tonight. Perhaps Bob Becker, stuck at home with Covid-19 tonight, raised a window to hear better what he thought might be a grizzly in the garden, only to find it was the Bloomington coach ratzenfratzing the referees, for which the coach earned one warning, one technical foul, and was told to stay after school and write on the blackboard 100 times, “We lost by 20, it wasn’t that close, sorry, Mr. and Ms. Referees.”

The only people who didn’t hear the Bloomington coach tonight were the people best prepared to render him mute, silent, and shaddup already.

Those were the Lady Potters, one of whom, Tatym Lamprecht, seemed puzzled when asked if she’d heard the Bloomington coach.

“Uh, no, really, I don’t hear anything out there,” she said. “Just kind of knew something was going on.”

I’m happy to report that — ignoring the high-volume coach attacking the zebras for an hour — the main thing going on tonight was Tatym Lamprecht at work with the basketball. The Potters played poorly in the first half, leading 17-16 at the intermission, raising the dread specter of a #1 seed losing to a #16 in the first round of the State Farm Holiday Classic. “We were getting good shots, but they weren’t falling,” assistant coach Dakota Neisen, standing in for Becker, said. I had the Potters 1-for-13 on 3’s at the intermission.

That changed quickly in the third quarter. “We’re good shooters,” Neisen said. “I told ’em to keep shooting. Then we exploded.” It was an explosion ignited by Lamprecht 22 seconds into the third quarter. From dead on at the top of the free throw circle, the junior guard squared up and . . .

BANG!

Followed 28 seconds later by Maggie Hobson from the left corner, Katie Krupa from that neighborhood, and Hobson again from the left . . .. .

BANG BANG BANG!

In 2 minutes and 2 seconds, those four 3’s restored order to the universe.

Always relentless on defense, the Potters were suddenly playing with confidence born of those successes on offense. They moved to a 34-22 lead in four minutes of the third quarter. That means the Potters scored as many points in four minutes as they had scored in the first 16 minutes. By quarter’s end, they led 46-30. Yes: first half,17 points; third quarter 29 more. Krupa smiled wide and recalled previous nights this season when Becker’s baked-in insistence on third-quarter dominance had paid off. “That third quarter again,” the senior all-stater said.

The third quarter belonged to Lamprecht. She was 4-for-4 on 3’s The first lit the fuse. The second at 5:04 kept the lead at 10, as did the third at 2:51. Her fourth, with 10 seconds left in the quarter, made it 46-30 and we might speak of that shot as the shaddup-already-3. Game over, thank you very much.

“Tatym’s adjusted so well,” Krupa said of the junior guard who transferred to Morton from East Peoria this summer. “At East Peoria, she was just making shots. It’s such a different environment here. And she’s been so huge for us.”

Once again, folks, the valiant interviewer did his best to get a smiling word from the happy Lamprecht. But as I put a question to her — “How did that third quarter feel, making those 3’s?” — Krupa, standing there, interjected, “ELECTRIC!”

That praise caused Ms. Lamprecht to duck and hide, the shyest of stars. She did kind of whisper two words. I think she said, “Yes, electric.”

Yes, electric was the word.

Krupa led Morton with 24 points and Lamprecht had 17. (Four times in 11 victories, K & L have combined to ourscore the opponents.) Hobson had 13 and Addy Engel 6. (The Potters had nine 3’s tonight, 5 by Lamprecht, three by Hobson.)

The Potters’ second-round game will be at 4 p.m. Tuesday In the Normal Community gym against #9 seed Rock Island. a 54-36 first-round winner over Pekin.

Metamora 46, Morton Lady Potters 43

I’ve been told it’s OK, even healthy, to talk to my wife, gone six months now.

“Sherri, I miss you. On my way to Metamora. Tough game tonight. Already dark at 5 o’clock. Hate that. Good night for driving, no rain and fog like going to Pekin last week. Easy drive on 117.

“I wish I could hold your hand. Wish we were 17 again. Remember that year? What a year.

“In Metamora now. Where’s the high school? You remember? I’m lost every time here. Been coming here for 10 years, never find the turn off 24 toward the gym. How can I always be lost in these little towns?

“Turn on Washington Street?

“What’s that dark space? Aarggh, must be Metamora Fields. Wrong way. Gotta do a u-turn in somebody’s driveway.

“Turning right on Progress Street. And a left back to 24. Past McDonald’s, no good. Recalculating.

“Left on Lafayette. Lights ahead. Made it. Want some popcorn?”

Metamora, now 9-1 for the season, played well defensively, moved the ball well on offense, took the lead early in the third and never gave it up in ending Morton’s undefeated streak at 10 games. It’s Metamora’s first victory over Morton since January of 2010. In those 11+ seasons, Morton defeated Metamora 25 straight times. The Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, called this one a game “we can learn from.” He also said, “There are lots of things we can do better.” A handful of careless turnovers is bad enough; the Potters made two handfuls. They also made costly fundamental basketball mistakes; twice in the critical last two minutes, the Potters somehow lost defensive rebounds on Metamora’ s missed free throws. In a one-possession game, no one can afford those mistakes.

“Wish you were here, Sherri. Stopping at McDonald’s for a comfort meal. Double cheeseburger, mustard and pickles. Want anything?

“Need to hold your hand on the way home.

“Love you.”

Katie Krupa led Morton’s scoring with 19. Paige Griffin had 15, Tatym Lamprecht 7, Izzy Hutchinson 2. The Potters were without senior guard Maggie Hobson, a late scratch from the starting lineup with a concussion sustained Tuesday at Washington.

Morton Lady Potters 43, Washington 42

Home from Washington, fed the kitten, took the dog out, ate a stack of Oreo Thins. It was a be-still-my-heart night. Nine lead changes. No lead bigger than five. Two lead changes in the last 87 seconds. A 3-ball took flight with five seconds to play and the way things were going, it well might have fallen from the sky and sent us into overtime. Home. Breathing again.

There was some doubt of that with 1:24 on the clock. Washington was up 38-37, Morton with the ball, the Potters spread to all corners, running a play called “Michigan,” and I’d describe the movements of each player except I have no freakin’ idea what those movements are other than to say whatever they are, they wound up with Tatym Lamprecht shooting a 3, and that, sports fans, is a beautiful thing.

“I love coaching that kid,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said. “Tatym’s a competitor, a winner, hitting the big shot, making plays.”

With 1:10 to play, Lamprecht took a pass at the top of the key. Had the geometry been different, “Michigan” might have called for the little junior guard to flash down the lane for a pass from Katie Krupa. Instead, with nowhere to go inside, she waited outside. There, a step behind the arc and two steps free of a defender, she squared up for the shot. Whatever Lamprecht’s season’s 3-ball percentages were at that moment, they didn’t matter. Squared up, given space at the top of the key, she is not going to miss that shot.

BANG!

The 3 gave the Potters a 40-38 lead with 1:10 to play. And 22 seconds later, Lamprecht made two free throws, 42-38.

More frenzy ensued in a game that was physical from the get-go, every possession contested, neither team able to create a sustained run against aggressive defenses; in fact, neither team scored more than five points without interruption. Washington came in with a 9-1 record, Morton 9-0, and they played like elite teams that might not lose three or four games all season.

In that last burst of chaos, with a chance to cut Morton’s lead to two, Washington missed two free throws badly. And yet, in a whirling, spinning, falling scramble to get the rebound of the second shot, Washington gave that despairing free throw shooter a reprieve. Unable to make a free throw unguarded, she yet threw in a long jump shot to make it 42-40 with 19 seconds left.

At :12.9, Krupa’s free throw moved the score to 43-40. After a Washington timeout, during which Bob Becker told his team, “DON’T FOUL,” Washington had :06.6 seconds to put up a 3. It got the shot off, badly, and a put-back two was inconsequential.

“I told the kids I was really, really proud of them,” Becker said later. “They showed a gritty level of toughness.”

And what did Tatym Lamprecht think of her play?

I saw Jim Mattson, the television idol, with his camera light on Lamprecht. She’s not a teevee star yet, and Mattson had to laugh afterward because the closer he came to her with his camera, the more she backed away, a happy girl smiling into the light. What she said on camera, I dunno. I caught her, too, and she explained the “Michigan” play — not that I understood the nuances of movements — and she said a few words that all 3-shooters would love to say: “It was really fun tonight — at the end — when we won.”

Lamprecht and Krupa each had 13 points, Paige Griffin had 9 (and an exceptional floor game), Maggie Hobson 4, Izzy Hutchinson 3, and Addy Engel 1.

Morton Lady Potters 61, Brimfield 41

Tonight, before the Potters played Brimfield, there was a moment of silence in the Potterdome. We all stood and we were all one in that moment. A young man from Brimfield died on Tuesday of this week. The folks who came down I-74 from Brimfield knew him. Those of us from Morton knew him, too, maybe not by his name, Jacob A. Look, but we all know a young man like him, 17, an athlete, a basketball player, a life to live. We stood for a moment, silent, praying for Jacob A. Look who could be our son, our friend, someone we love.

Then five Potters players moved to the end of their bench. There they each picked up a bouquet of flowers. They walked toward center court with those flowers. Five seniors — Katie Krupa, Maggie Hobson, Paige Griffin, Paige Chapin, and Maria Lopko — handed bouquets to the Brimfield starting five — Ella Luna, Jaclyn Fabry, Elynn Peterson, Sophie Bedell, and Elly Doe. They were flowers in memory of Jacob A. Look and they were flowers saying we’re all in this together, Brimfield and Morton, girls and boys, moms and dads, all of us lucky enough to rise for a moment of silence.

How nice. How very nice.

A nice night all around, actually, a night on which the Potters played their very best basketball of the season, if only for a half. They led at halftime, 40-11. Though the Potters are a 3A power and are expected to defeat any 1A power, even a program as strong as Brimfield’s has been for years, that 40-11 margin at halftime was extraordinary. Coach Bob Becker said, “We were terrific at both ends the whole first half.” In one three-minute stretch, Morton outscored Brimfield 16-0 to go up, 40-8.

How good was that run?

So good it made me ask a man behind me, “What year is this, 2019?” That was the year the Potters won their fourth state championship. At halftime tonight, both Krupa and Tatym Lamprecht had outscored Brimfield — Krupa with 14, Lamprecht 13 (all but one of those in a spectacular two-minute run that included a four-point play when fouled on a long 3-pointer.)

“That first half,” Krupa said, “was almost perfect.”

But the third quarter, not so much, not even a little bit.

“The worst three minutes of a second half ever,” she said.

Actually, it was a pretty bad 5 minutes and 15 seconds in which Brimfield outscored Morton 12-3 and moved within 20 at 43-23.

It was then that a man who needs hearing aids needed no hearing aid to hear Bob Becker address his players this way: “THE GAME IS NOT OVER.” He respected the Brimfield team that came in win an 8-0 record, winning by an average of 40 points, and admired their resilience in tonight’s game against a four-time state champion on their home court. “They weren’t going to quit coming after us,” he said.

Though Morton’s lead dropped to 16 with a quarter to play, the issue was never in doubt. It is a measure of a team’s possibilities that it can be undefeated, can win nine games, can win them all by at least 16 points and by as many as 26, and play its best half of the season to build a 29-point halftime lead against a previously undefeated team, and still believe it should have been better.

Lamprecht led Morton’s scoring with 21. Krupa had 20, Hobson 9, Addy Engel 5, and Chapin, Anja Ruxlow, and Ellie VanMeenen had 2 apiece.

Morton Lady Potters 55, Pekin 35

Let’s begin with the terrifying drive through a foggy typhoon trying to be a monsoon to get from Morton to Pekin . . .

Then add Mother Nature drumming her thunderstorm-y fingernails on the roof of Dawdy Hawkins’ gymnasium . . .

Right before the Tornado Watch set off everybody’s iPhone weather buzzers . . .

And did you hear the sirens!!!

Sirens? Sirens mean tornadoes . . .a tornado on December 10?

Checked Clime on my iPhone and it’s freakin’ 61 degrees outside . . .

Mama Nature, it’s DECEMBER, Mama, not JUNE, settle down . . .

And then the Pekin High School athletic director, Barry Gurvey, got on the microphone to say there’d been a , , , ,.

TORNADO WARNING!

That’s the big one, a notch higher than a Tornado Watch, meaning somebody had put eyes on a tornado . . . .

So after driving like an insane person to weave my way through the I-74 fog-soon/18-wheeler race track and hearing Mama Nature’s nails hammer their scary tune on the roof and hearing SIRENS ! and it’s summer warm in DECEMBER, here came Barry Gurvey lowering his Covid-19 mask to talk into the public address microphone and tell the gathered basketball folks, maybe 500 of us . . .

GET THE HELL OUT OF THE GYM . . .

Or, in his official lingo . . . . .

“It’s not safe,” he said, “to stay in the gym.”

Otherwise, just another night with the undefeated Potters winning by 20 in Pekin. They’re now 8-0, Pekin is 2-7.

It was less than the Potters’ best performance, but hey, winning by 20 is better than waking up somewhere far away and hearing yourself say, “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Illinois anymore.”

Once freshman Ellie VanMeenen made a 3-pointer to give the Potters an 8-6 lead in the first quarter, they never trailed. Neither, though, could they put Pekin away. They led by three at halftime, by six after three quarters, and were only seven up, 40-33, with 4:20 to play — which is when my iPhone buzzed with TORNADO WARNING.

I saw Pekin AD Gurvey go to Morton’s bench and whisper into coach Bob Becker’s ear that Mother Nature was making a scene.

Play went on for another two minutes, the Potters scoring the next seven points — on a Paige Griffin layup, a Tatym Lamprecht fast break layup off a long Katie Krupa pass, and an Addy Engel 3-pointer. That made it 47-35 with 2:17 left.

Then we were told to leave the gym and go into the school corridors, but not down by the trophy case, an admonition suggesting it wouldn’t be healthy to be impaled by a tornado-propelled trophy.

We stayed in the hallfways 33 minutes before the coast was clear and the game resumed. In the post-tornado period, Morton scored all the points, running the victory margin from 12 to 20.

It was a fun time set off by Tatym Lamprecht. When she missed the second free throw of a one-and-one, she somehow scrambled to get the rebound, put it in and was fouled again. That’s five Lamprecht points in four seconds, which is tornado-fast, though it may not be in good taste right now to crack wise about a tornado. Krupa followed with four free throws, and both sides subbed in the deep-benchers for the last 1:20, giving 15 or 20 girls a story to tell their grandchildren someday about The Night We Played Through a Tornado. (And Becker, the Hall of Famer, can now claim that his team has never been scored on after a tornadic interruption.)

Lamprecht, the Potters’ leading scorer tonight with 19, had asked Becker for extra work this week. “I didn’t think I’d been playing as well as I can,” she said. (A high standard. She’s playing sensationally.) She worked on her shooting — she made three 3’s tonight — and worked on finishing drives with her left hand. I don’t remember her scoring with her left hand tonight, but she did everything else well when Morton’s offense was otherwise slow to get much done. Her last bucket, in fact, grew from great defense. After her second free throw, when Pekin thought to toss the ball in-bounds, Lamprecht simply stepped in front of the would-be receiver and turned the pass into a steal and two.

Trying to make us all comfortable in the hallways, the Pekin AD, Gurvey, announced that he’d open some classrooms if we wanted to sit down.

Someone shouted, “Do we have to study?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling, “and there’ll be a test.”

Lamprecht’s 19 was followed by Krupa’s 14. Paige Griffin and Maggie Hobson each had 7, Engel 5, and VanMeenen 3.

Morton Lady Potters 60, Dunlap 42

Nothing happened on this play, except everything. It started early in the second quarter, Morton leading, 19-9.

Tatym Lamprecht, relentless on defense, knocked the ball loose from a Dunlap guard near midcourt. She did this so near midcourt as to do it directly in front of the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, who was off the bench and in a defensive crouch himself, practically part of the fun.

It’s not enough to say Lamprecht forced the ball out of the Dunlapian’s hands. She then fell on it, making it hers. And as she rolled over with the ball, on her back on the floor, she threw it to her left to Ellie VanMeenen running free.

We’re not even half-done here, folks, hang on.

VanMeenen, a freshman, moved the ball to the senior all-stater, Katie Krupa, at the midcourt line. Krupa was then in command of this play that led to nothing while meaning everything on a night when the Potters had something to prove. Krupa surveyed the floor ahead of her and whom did she see filling the right lane?

Tatym Lamprecht. She had risen from the pile of bodies at midcourt and done the great thing of getting back in the play. She was hustling downcourt when Krupa, after two or three steps, hit her with a pass near the free throw line.

Still with me?

Lamprecht had the ball trying to finish on a drive to the hoop, only her shot rolled off.

And who got the rebound?

Lamprecht. She wrestled it away from two Dunlap people and went up in the crowd for another shot, only to have it blocked out of bounds.

It was Morton’s ball, and here we pause to take a breath. All this happened in less time than it took to type it up. And nothing happened. No points at either end. Not a play you’ll see as a Mattson “Jim Dandy.”

So why, back there at midcourt, did Bob Becker do what my notes say he did?

“Becker clapping.”

The coach loves him some relentless defense, hustle, and especially does he love him what he scrawled pre-game on his lost-but-found whiteboard: “Competitive fire.”

From the Lamprecht steal until the end of the second quarter, the Potters went on a 12-5 run that gave them a 31-14 halftime lead. They had trailed at halftime in their last two games, 12-11 and 29-25 before winning by 20 and 21.

Now undefeated in seven games, all by margins ranging from 16 to 26 points, the Potters had fallen into a desultory, dispiriting, and just plain bad habit of needing big third quarters to beat mediocre teams. After the second such victory, Krupa said, “We’re a great third-quarter team. We need to be a great all-quarters team.”

That was Becker’s message to his team before tonight’s game against Dunlap, winner of the Mid-Illini regular-season championship last year.

The Potters’ leading scorer tonight, sophomore Addy Engel, said, “Coach emphasized that we needed to play all four quarters. We came out strong from the get-go.” Engel scored in every quarter — 5, 6, 4, and 6. Her points came from inside on nifty finishing work at the hoop and from outside on a 3-pointer and 15-foot jumper.

“Addy Engel was awesome,” Becker said. She’s the fourth Potter to lead the team in scoring, following Krupa, Lamprecht, and Maggie Hobson.

Whatever darkness may have settled on Becker in his team’s last two games, it was gone after this one.

“That was fun,” he said. “The kids were competing. That makes my job so much more enjoyable.”

Engel had the 21, Krupa 12, Lamprecht and VanMeenen 6 each, Hobson 5, Isabella Hutchinson 4, and Paige Griffin and Gaby Heer each had 3.

Morton Lady Potters 44, Canton 23

What I do sometimes, because I can sometimes, is make a note from something I see on Bob Becker’s coaching whiteboard.

It’s big enough and his Magic Marker scrawls sometimes are clear enough to be read from the bleachers’ second row behind the Lady Potters bench.

Tonight I couldn’t read it because he’d lost it. Somewhere between Tuesday night’s game in Normal and tonight’s in the Potterdome, the whiteboard disappeared.

So Becker had a mini-version of the board tonight, not nearly big enough to contain his starting lineup, the defensive assignments, and bits of wisdom, encouragement, and pleadings.

No wonder, it says here, the Potters had so much trouble with Canton. Yeah, yeah, I know, whiteboard, schmiteboard, it’s got nothing to do with the game. But, hey. Blaming it on the missing whiteboard is as good an explanation for the troubles as what Becker said afterward. What he said, in analysis shared with the assembled press (me), was, “I dunno.”

Anyway, the Potters once trailed, 12-5. At halftime, when it was 12-11, I traded small talk with two ex-Potters now playing at Illinois Central College, Courtney Jones and Peyton Dearing. I urged them to suit up for the second half. Failing to persuade them, I scribbled a note, “M better be good in 3d.”

Morton was good in the third quarter. It opened on a 13-1 run after scoring the second quarter’s last six. That’s 19-1. It took 8 minutes and three seconds. At full-game length, that run becomes 76-4.

One section of that run explains everything.

It began with Katie Krupa’s put-back of a Tatym Lamprecht 3 that rolled around and out. Then Krupa, aggressive on defense, made a mid-court steal for a breakaway layup. After Maggie Hobson’s defense forced a Canton turnover on a five-second call, Hobson followed up with a 3 off a Krupa pass. Best of all, Krupa, did a thing. Trapped with the ball under the Potters’ basket, her back to the baseline, tight-roping her way across the paint, with her left hand — her left hand! — she put the ball so high off the glass and so softly off the glass that it fell through the net, a thing of remarkable beauty.

In less than three minutes, Morton’s lead grew from four points to 10. There was still a quarter to play, but this game was over. Talent had prevailed. Remember that Canton once led, 12-5, meaning the Potters won the rest of it, 39-11. There’s good reason they’re undefeated in six games. It just took a while to get there tonight.

There was good whiteboard news after the game.

“The world is right again,” Becker said. “Found it!”

Where?

“On the floor, behind my desk.”

Krupa scored 17 points, Lamprecht 12, Hobson 9, and Addy Engel, Paige Griffin, and Abbey Pollard had 2 each.

Morton Lady Potters 68, Normal West 48

The idea is a Lady Potter throws a high lob toward the hoop. There Katie Krupa rises to catch it and drop it in. It’s a play called “Bradley” and everyone south of Chicago and north of St. Louis has seen it lots of times, way back to Brandi Bisping and Lindsey Dullard, now with the estimable Miss Krupa, who went up for Maggie Hobson’s pass this evening, only to have it . . .

Intercepted?

Not exactly.

A man with a notebook approached Maggie Hobson and said, “I need you.”

“About the lob,” she said.

“How’d you guess?”

“I was a little late throwing it. But Katie was open under the basket, and as soon as I threw it, I knew it was going to hit the rim.”

Not exactly.

“It was supposed to go over the rim, but I didn’t get enough oomph behind it.”

And it fell short of Krupa’s grasp, and . . .

“I didn’t think it would be a swish,” Hobson said.

Exactly.

The lob to Krupa became a 3 for Hobson, a sudden and unexpected 3 from the left side. Hey, she threw it two-handed from about waist level and intended the ball to fly over the rim by a foot or two. The Normal West public address announcer had named every scorer and credited every assist all evening. But not this time. He sat silent rather than be heard saying, “A 3 by Hobson, assist by Hobson.”

The unintended 3 changed everything. It gave Morton its biggest lead at 51-45 late in the third quarter. And Normal West stopped scoring. It didn’t make a field goal from that point on, a full 10 minutes. Hobson’s swish started a 12-0 run that put the Potters up 60-45 with 5:43 to play. Game over.

Until then, the Potters hadn’t done much. At halftime, I made a note. “M offense vs zone, lifeless. Meanwhile, NW has made 5 3’s.” The failures at both ends left Morton down at halftime, 29-25.

No problem there, as we learned in Morton’s Thanksgiving Tournament. There’s a third quarter coming up. The Potters won four games in the tournament, all by double figures, most of the margins provided by domination of the third-quarter. They won the four third quarters, 67-18. This time, at Normal West, after scoring 25 in the first two quarters, the Potters scored 29 in the third alone. They moved from four down to nine up.

The Potters coach, Bob Becker, explained what happened.

“We played harder and better,” he said.

“But, but, but,” the notebook man said. “You’re down at half and they’re making all those 3’s.”

“Our coach got a little stubborn,” the smiling coach said about the stubborn coach. “He stayed in a man-to-man.”

Second half, both coaches decided to mix in a little zone. It confused Normal West’s shooters.

Krupa noticed. “We’re really adjusting well at halftime,” she said. “Right now we’re a great third-quarter team. But we’ve gotta be a great all-quarters team.”

She, for one, did four quarters this evening. Krupa had 24 points, Tatym Lamprecht 15 (with four 3’s), Hobson 12 (all on 3’s), Paige Griffin 6, Addy Engel 4, Izzy Hutchinson 4, and Ellie VanMeenen 3.

Morton Lady Potters 66, Champaign Central 35
& Lady Potters 49, Richwoods 23

You have something good going when one name is all you need to say. There was “Chandler” and “Brandi” followed by “Tenley” and “Lindsay.” With those names come four state championships, a nearly-perfect 37-1 season, and victories achieved at such a rate and with such precision that somebody wrote, “They’re the Golden State Warriors, only with ponytails.”

Those were tough acts to follow, as noted by Maria Lopko tonight. “We have something to prove,” the senior guard said in the happy aftermath of the Potters’ convincing victory over Richwoods that gave them the championship of the Morton Thanksgiving Tournament. Unbeaten in the four games of the round-robin event, the Potters won by 22, 16, and today’s 31 and 26, the last two blow-outs done with running-clock fourth quarters.

I went to Lopko because she is, officially now, the Keeper of the Potter Turkey.

It’s a rare honor, never before bestowed on any Potter, mostly because it didn’t exist until two days ago and then only in Bob Becker’s mind. The coach and his wife, Evelyn, raised two daughters. Small wonder that he might find a Beanie Baby in the house. This one was an orange-colored turkey. (Hang with me, explaining coming.) A “turkey” can be a bowling term signifying three strikes in a row. Becker, a coach 24/7, translated that into three defensive stops in a row. A turkey. (Get it?) And it came to pass that the coach, looking for someone to be the Keeper of the Turkey, handed the orange Beanie Baby to … yep … Maria Lopko, a senior who occupies a place deep on the bench and mostly invisible except when leading cheers from there.

Lopko’s job was to keep track of defensive stops.

Every third stop, she would raise high the Potter Turkey.

“My arm got tired,” she said one afternoon. “Seven times I did it. Seven times, three stops in a row. Coach says if we do that, we win.”

There are only so many questions you can ask a bright, young woman about a Beanie Baby turkey before she takes the conversation another direction, which is how we got to these Potters, at 4-0, being a team with something to prove.

“It’s not like we have four D-1 players,” Lopko said. “And we didn’t have a real chance last season, with Covid and all, to show what we can do. Now we’re getting a chance. We have lots of potential and we’re working hard. We can’t let the Potter legacy down.”

Not much chance of that anytime soon, to judge by this evening’s date with Richwoods. It was 11-3 after a quarter and 19-5 midway in the second. Richwoods threw in a couple 3’s to move within eight at 24-16 late in the half. The Potters scored the next 22 points — winning the third quarter, 15-0 (and in four games, they won the third quarter, 67-18.) That put the mercy clock to running against a Richwoods program that only four seasons ago ended Morton’s run of three straight state titles en route to winning its own.

That 15-0 third quarter is proof positive of Morton’s dominance this evening. It began with a Katie Krupa layup, one of the nine field goals she scored in the paint, either on her own extraordinary moves or off nifty entry passes to the low block. After Maggie Hobson’s defensive work out front forced a Richwoods pass out of bounds — bringing cheers from fans of persistent defense — Tatym Lamprecht capitalized on the good work with a 3 from the left side. Paige Chapin scored on a put-back, Krupa passed Richwoods people in a blur with a long-stepping drive to the hoop, added two free throws next time down, and then passed us all in a blur by stealing a pass and going full-court for a layup.

Got all that? Wait. There’s more. There’s Tatym Lamprecht. “I like stealing the ball,” the junior guard said later. “I go for the ball a lot. I’m feeling great.” Four games into her Potter career — a transfer from East Peoria, moving into the Morton school district after a house fire this summer — Lamprecht has become an important player at both ends of the court, a good outside shooter who also can finish at the basket and a defender eager to take advantage of an opponent’s carelessness, as she did by taking a loose dribble in the backcourt and sprinting away for a layup to end the Potters’ 15-0 third quarter.

Point is, these Potters. with something to prove, did some proving today. Maybe their opponents arrived in down years; none of the four others looked much good at any time. But maybe Morton’s defense had everything to do with that. The Potters make few mistakes while their opponents seem to make many.

Only one thing went wrong. Mario Lopko didn’t get to score. Off the bench late, as usual, she made a pretty drive to the hoop. Her shot rolled off the rim. Even as a referee’s whistle indicated that Lopko had been fouled and would shoot two free throws, the game-ending buzzer also sounded. The referees might have allowed Lopko to shoot, but no, the running block had run out, time to quit, dinner’s waiting at home, they walked off the court, and poor Maria Lopko didn’t get to shoot.

“Awww,” her teammates said.

Lopko said, “I wish I’d made the shot. But the free throws, that’s OK. I haven’t been doing so good on them lately, anyway.” And she exited stage left, smiling.

Krupa scored 20, Lamprecht 13 (with three 3’s), Chapin and Isabella Hutchinson had 4 apiece, Emilia Miller and Paige Griffin each had 3, and Addy Engel had 2.

In the morning romp over Champaign Central, all 16 players got in the game and 12 scored. Maggie Hobson 14, Krupa 12,
Engel 8, Magda Lopko 8, Chapin 8, Hutchinson 6, Abbey Pollard 3, Lamprecht 3, Miller 1, Anja Ruxlow 1, Griffin 1, and Graci Junis 1.

The Lady Potters started out the season strong with 4 impressive wins in the Morton Thanksgiving Tournament. Winning each game by double digits and we’re never really threatened. Looks like these Lady Potters will definitely be fun to watch this year!

Morton Lady Potters 49, Batavia 27
& Lady Potters 61, East St. Louis 45

One of the East St. Louis girls, #20 to be specific, had made the mistake of going crazy on 3’s to propel her team to a halftime lead over the Morton Lady Potters in an evening game of Morton’s Thanksgiving Holiday Tournament.

The Potters coach, Bob Becker, had noticed #20. Of course, he noticed. Even over-stuffed-with-turkey sportswriters noticed #20 making six 3’s, half from two steps beyond the arc, all of them rainbows of the most disturbing kind.

The difference is, when Becker, a Hall of Fame coach, notices stuff like that, he does something about it. The first hint of his do-something plan was visible on his coaching whiteboard as he left the bench for the halftime intermission.

On the whiteboard, Becker had scrawled:

*20.

And if my typing machine could do it, I’d do what Becker had done. He circled that *20.

Which meant, uh-oh, #20, there’s trouble coming for you.

At halftime, East St. Louis led, 32-28. And #20 had scored 22 herself. Shakara McCline was her name. She put old timers in mind of a time when Springfield High beat the Potters in a sectional tournament game. Springfield’s Zahna Medley, dropped her 3’s straight out of the sky, so perfect they barely caused a net to shiver.

McCline was close to that good tonight – for a half — until, to be exact, with his whiteboard in hand, Bob Becker told the Potters it was time to do something about that.

They went to a box-and-one defense, meaning Becker assigned little senior guard Paige Griffin to do nothing on defense except stay within an arm’s length of #20 at all times. The other four Potters defenders would play a zone defense.

Not often do a coach’s plans work perfectly. This was a time Becker’s plan worked perfectly — #20 didn’t score in the second half. She got off only four shots, one a 30-foot airball, one a driving layup airball.

Griffin was modest about her work on #20. “I didn’t really do much,” she said, and while she did enough to discourage #20’s movement on the offensive end, it’s also true that East St. Louis didn’t do much to free up the shooter in that half. With Griffin and #20 off by themselves mostly, it became a 4-on-4 game, and that’s a deal the Potters will take every time, especially when the odd girl out is the one that just scored 22 points in the first half.

Meanwhile, the Potters again did what Becker has long preached — they won the third quarter early. They opened on a 9-2 run — two free throws by Addy Engel followed by seven straight Katie Krupa points. And they closed with an 8-1 run — a 3 by Krupa, a 3 by Tatym Lamprecht, and two Lamprecht free throws. A 17-3 quarter. Game over. It wasn’t long after that when #20 tugged at her jersey, the universal hoopster signal meaning, Hey, Coach, I’m gassed, get me outta here.

Krupa led Morton’s scoring with 26, Engel had 14, Maggie Hobson and Lamprecht 8 each, Gaby Heer 3, and Paige Chapin 2.

The Potters’ morning victory over Batavia followed that familiar pattern of a strong third quarter. Aggressive at both ends, Batavia trailed at halftime, 20-15, only to be outscored 15-0 before making a layup with :06.5 left in the third.

That game-deciding run went this way: Lamprecht a 3, Krupa a 3, Krupa a free throw, Lamprecht a driving layup, Krupa another 3, Lamprecht a steal and layup, and Engel a free throw.

Lamprecht and Krupa each scored 17, Hobson and Chapin 4 each, Engel 3, Griffin 2, and freshman Anja Ruxlow had a crossing-the-lane and banking-it-in layup for the first 2 of a Potters career that began, oh, let’s say it began, really, five years ago when, as a fourth-grader, she sat next to me at Potters games keeping her own scorebook.

The 2019-20 Morton Lady Potters put together a historic season that included a school record 37 wins (2nd most in IHSA history) & a return trip to Redbird Arena for the Final 4 & a State Runner-up finish.  The 2019-20 Lady Potters won 6 Championships, along the way to their 37-1 season, including the Morton Thanksgiving Tournament Championship, State Farm Holiday Classic Championship, Mid-Illini Conference Championship, Regional, Sectional & Super-Sectional Championships.

Last season’s Lady Potters team graduated 7 Seniors, including All-Conference/All-State players Lindsey Dullard (C), Courtney Jones (C), Peyton Dearing & Maddy Becker (C), as well as prime time reserves Olivia Remmert (C), Makenna Baughman & Abby Steider.  This Senior Class of 2020 had unprecedented success for the Lady Potter Program, finishing their careers with a record of 135-8, including 2x IHSA State Champions & a Runner-up trophy.   Jones, Dullard, Becker & Remmert had a perfect Conference record (56-0) in their 4 years with the Potters, which had never been done before.  Some pretty big shoes to fill indeed!

However, it seems that each year, the Lady Potters graduate great players, and then a new batch of Lady Potters step into those roles and achieve their own success.  This season the Lady Potters will return All-Conference/All-State Junior starter Katie Krupa, as well as Seniors; Raquel Frakes, Cailyn Cowley, Sedona McCartney, Claire Reiman & Faith Hostetler, Juniors; Maggie Hobson & Paige Griffin & Sophomore Gaby Heer.  They will be joined by first year varsity players Paige Chapin (Jr), Maria Lopko (Jr), Abbey Pollard (So), Addyson Engel (Fr) & Graci Unis (Fr). They will look to carry on the traditions of Sisterhood & Excellence.

With the adversity & challenges that 2020 has presented, we are all very hopeful that these Lady Potters get the opportunity to show what they can do.  As always, your support & encouragement for the Lady Potters means more than you can imagine.  As you have proved every year…  Potter Fans are the BEST!!!

This is where the journey begins. All of our players were once summer campers like you. Join our championship players and coaches this summer to begin learning the Potter Way. You will learn fundamentals of basketball while meeting new friends and having FUN. All camps are instructed by Morton 709 coaches and players. Each camper will be treated with TLC (tender loving care) and it’s our hope for all campers to learn some basketball, meet new friends, and have fun while sparking a love for Lady Potter Basketball! We look forward to working with you!

 

Shooting & Offensive Skills Camp        May 24^th – May 27^th          Grades 1-6   9am-11am   $75

This camp is all about offense!  Ballhandling, passing, footwork, moves & finishes and shooting fundamentals will be emphasized.  Campers will be instructed on shooting mechanics along with an array of individual offensive skills designed to help each player succeed on the offensive end of the court.  All campers will receive a t-shirt.  Four day camp runs Monday – Thursday and will utilize the High School East Gym as well as the new Junior High Gym.  All campers should report to the high school east gym on day one.

FUNdamental Camp                      June 14th-17th                             Grades 1-6   9am-11am   $75

Our FUNdamental Camp will consist of fun, action-packed four days designed to develop each camper’s fundamental skills and overall playing ability. Fundamentals will be stressed but fun is main priority!  Camp will include team-oriented situations as well as individual skill development and a variety of camp games.  We want camp to be an enjoyable Potter experience working with our players and coaching staff.  This is a great way to meet other kids interested in basketball and learn a bit of our Potter Way.  All campers will receive a t-shirt at each camp.  Four day camp runs Monday – Thursday and will utilize the High School East Gym as well as the new Junior High Gym.  All campers should report to the high school east gym on day one.

 

Morton Potters & Junior Potters         Grades 7th-12^th                     $80

 Shooting & Offensive Skill Development      May 24^th – May 27^th          11:00am-1:00pm

 Developing Team Concepts                               June 14th- 17th                  11:00am-1:00pm

These eight dates are for Morton High School and Morton Junior High aged players and are designed to help build championship players. Individual skill development along with introducing team concepts will be emphasized. All players planning to play during the summer and winter are strongly encouraged to participate. These count as some of our IHSA contact dates and will serve as some summer practices.  Each camp will run Monday – Thursday and utilize the high school east gym as well as new junior high gym.  All campers should plan to meet at high school on day one.

 

Please click the following link for Registration Form: Morton Lady Potters Summer Camps 2021 Registration Form

Please direct all questions to Morton Head Coach Bob Becker

Email: Robert.becker@mcusd709.org                        Phone # 309-642-4432

Be sure to visit our Morton Lady Potter Basketball website!             www.mortonladypotters.com