Richwoods 64, Morton 61. In double overtime. “Two best teams in the state,” one coach said. The other said, “Great for November, I love it!” I looked at my notebook for what I thought. I couldn’t read a note. The book was covered with scribbles, scrawls, and other hieroglyphics. It looked like a 3-year-old work. That, or a doddering geezer did it after four whiskeys.

So, on the way home, I stopped at Subway. Got a foot-long turkey with provolone, lettuce, tomato, and honey mustard. Add chips and a drink, $10. Home, I let the dogs out, let the dogs in, fed the dogs. Ate half the Subway, put the rest in the fridge for tomorrow. (Breakfast?) Turned on the Christmas tree lights. (Yes. A long story.) Hooked up the iPhone, which had gone dead.

I was stalling against the time I would be forced to decipher those trembling-hand notes. Also, I waited for my heart to quit jumping against its cage.

Some games do that to you. This was one of those. Can any girls high school basketball game be called a heavyweight fight? Yes, this one can. Richwoods, the defending state champion in Class 3A, takes no prisoners. Morton, winner of the three previous 3A titles, refuses to lose. We had, then, the last four state-championship programs coming to the Potterdome undefeated. With maybe a thousand spectators raising a ruckus for both teams, the game became what our hurry-up times now demand of its sports events: An Instant Classic.

There were trash-talking stars (more on that in a minute). There was hand-to-hand combat under the boards. Bodies flew every which way. Morton did its best offensive work from long-range (seven 3’s) and on elegant moves to the rim. In contrast to Morton’s daggers, Richwoods’s big, strong, aggressive people carried sledgehammers (its last 11 field goals came on power moves inside).

All this played out against the backdrop of Richwoods’ 49-29 humbling of Morton in last season’s sectional tournament. The questions that grew from that game and Richwoods’s ensuing run to the state championship were simple: A) Is Richwoods that good? B) Has it established dominance in the area now? And C) Will Morton get over the sectional loss that even its coach, Bob Becker, admitted was “rather embarrassing”?

I’d say the answers are: A) Yes, B) Not quite yet, and C) Yes.

The Richwoods coach, Todd Hursey, has said his team intends to go undefeated this season (it lost once last year). It’s hard to imagine anyone matching Richwoods’s strength – 6-foot-1 Camryn Taylor, a D-1 commit to Marquette, literally rises head and shoulders above most 3A defenders in the paint; her running mate inside, 6-foot forward Jaden McCloud, would be any other team’s star. In tonight’s victory, Taylor and McCloud scored Richwoods’s last 13 points.

That said, Morton made the case that the sectional loss was an aberration and that tonight’s game was the norm. The Potters led from early in the first quarter until the end of the third. It led by as many as six points. Down by nine points with three minutes to play, it came back to force overtime. Twice, at the end of regulation and at the horn in the first overtime, Morton had a last shot to win. “I’m proud of these kids,” Bob Becker said. “It’s still November. They’ll learn and grow from this.”

Tonight’s game, then, provided answers for both questions B) and C).

Now, those notes on game-turning moments . . .

From nine points down with three minutes to play, Morton went on an 11-2 run. It began with a Courtney Jones put-back basket and a free throw when fouled. Tenley Dowell and Maddy Becker followed with 3’s, and Katie Kupra’s two free throws with 18 seconds to play made it 51-all at the end of regulation – but that was the last good offensive work the Potters could manage against the long, quick, aggressive match-up zone that is Richwoods’s trademark.

The lead changed hands three times in the first overtime. Maddy Becker’s 3 put Morton up, 54-53, and Lindsey Dullard’s rebound bucket regained the lead at 56-55. A Dullard free throw made it 57-55 before Richwoods tied it with 15.9 seconds left.

Two strong Taylor moves to the rim gave Richwoods a 61-57 lead a minute and a half into the second overtime. Morton tied it with a Jones layup and two free throws by Megan Gold at :55.8. From there, though, the Potters couldn’t get a decent shot. Richwoods finished in the last 34 seconds with a McCloud layup and free throw.

My scorekeeping (shaky, literally) had McCloud with 18 points and Taylor with 14. Dowell led Morton with 21, Dullard had 15, Becker 12, Krupa 6, Jones 5, and Gold 2.

That trash-talking thing? It was an all-game deal for Richwoods’s Taylor, mostly jawing at Dowell. It began with Taylor’s second foul at 5:32 of the second quarter. “I clapped,” Dowell said, “and she cussed in my face.” Taylor was a busy talker, if not to Dowell, then in those moments when she put her hands together, as if in beseeching prayer, to tell one referee or another how he should do his job.

As for what, exactly, Taylor said to Dowell, the Morton star said, “Oh, I can’t say that.”