At some point late in the storm, Bob Becker’s glasses came off. They clattered against the floor and he had to chase them down. From where I was, seven or eight rows up in the bleachers, I couldn’t tell what caused the glasses to fly off. Becker had been in a state of discontent rising to outrage on its way to volcanic activity. Maybe he stomped a foot at a cursed zerbra as he whipped his head sideways in disbelief and caused the glasses to go spinning off his face. Or maybe the glasses had decided to leap to safety before they, too, melted down.

So I asked the coach a question. “Your glasses?”

He answered. “I’m an idiot.”

He said it with a smile, a winner’s smile, for in his team’s locker room he had held high a gorgeous trophy and told the Morton High School Lady Potters that they had done “something that’s never been done” in the program’s history.

What Tracy Pontius and Brooke Bisping never did, what Sarah Livingston and Kait Byrne never did, what Chandler Ryan and Brandi Bisping never did — all those stars never did it – it now has been done by Tenley Dowell, Josi Becker, Caylie Jones, Kassidy Shurman, Lindsey Dullard, Courtney Jones, Megan Gold, Peyton Dearing, Maddy Becker, Bridget Wood, Olivia Remmert, Addi Cox, Kathryn Reiman, and Claire Kraft.

They won the State Farm Holiday Classic. Three times before, first in 2006 and twice in the last three seasons, Becker’s teams had been runners-up in the Classic, one of Illinois’ most prestigious holiday tournaments. This time the Potters defeated Normal Community, 61-56, for the championship.

Once a rout created by Morton’s near-perfect performance through two and a half quarters, Normal Community transformed the game into a hold-your-breath thriller.

Morton led by 22 points midway through the third quarter. But Normal Community’s aggressive trapping defense and all-out drives to the rim cut the lead to 5 points with two minutes to play. In the locker room, as Becker raised the big trophy overhead, he told his Potters they were “a great team” that had “weathered their storm in the second half,” a storm testing the Potters’ resolve and poise over the game’s last 12 minutes.

Let’s cut to the chase. It’s 53-48, Morton, with two minutes to go. For almost nine minutes, the Potters had scored only one field goal. (They’d made nine buckets in the game’s first nine minutes.) So precise against a trapping defense only the night before when they toyed with Chicago St. Ignatius, this time the Potters came apart under pressure. Four times against the Normal Community defense they lost the ball without getting a shot, twice on five-second violations, once on a double-dribble call, and once on a traveling. (The wonder, I guess, is that Becker didn’t offer his glasses to the referees, who were seeing things unseen by Potter people.)

Anyway, caught in that storm, Morton needed a hero. It needed someone who could make something out of nothing. It needed someone willing to drive at full speed at the Normal Community defenders and dare them to stop her. It needed a big play. Here came Tenley Dowell. She came down the lane’s right side. To avoid a defender halfway down the paint, Dowell did a step right. In full flight, she put up a shot softly, put up with a shooter’s perfect touch, the ball kissing the board and falling in. Fouled on the move, Dowell made the free throw. The lead was then 56-48 with 1:41 to play. It felt safe to resume breathing.

However stormy the second half was for the Potters, the first half was sunshine and balloons. It was their most impressive performance of the season at both ends. Never forcing a shot, letting everything happen out of ball movement, Morton made 15 of 24 shots in the half; that’s 62.5 percent. They scored inside, from mid-range, and from downtown (six 3-pointers, three by Lindsey Dullard, two by Kassidy Shurman). Caylie Jones not only made 4 of 5 shots (two from 17 feet), she drew two charges. With Dowell and Josi Becker dogging their every step, Normal Community’s two leading scorers all season, Maya Wong and Summer Stoewer, managed only six shots and four points in the half.

Dullard led Morton’s scoring with 18. Jones had 13, Dowell 12, Josi Becker 10. Shurman had 6 and Megan Gold 2.

Bob Becker was thrilled to win, at last, a State Farm Holiday Classic. He was happy to get his hands on that golden trophy in the shape of a basketball: “It will look great in the trophy case.” But he didn’t so much as pretend to be satisfied with the accomplishment.

Remember, he said, the Classic is a “mid-season, holiday,Christmas tournament.” It’s not the State Tournament that his teams have won three years in a row. No girls team has ever won four straight.

“We’ve got bigger and better things in store,” he said.