Morton’s Lady Potters 59, Pekin 23
I have been in Pekin High School’s Dawdy Hawkins gymnasium many times. Usually, I’m alone. Or at least lonely, because the wide and tall bleachers are all but empty. Not tonight. For Senior Night tonight there was a good crowd, a few hundred fans, along with cheerleaders, a pep band, and a dance squad. I think I know why so many people came to the game.
They wanted OUT OF THE HOUSE!
Three days of Arctic weather!
Twenty-two below zero!
Snow, ice!
Enough!
Not to reveal my personal stupidity in this weather, but a guy’s gotta write about something. I had spike-y thingamajigs to wear on the bottom of my boots. They’re designed to bite into ice and keep a guy upright. So I went to the barn in a hurry one afternoon and decided I didn’t have time to put on my boots with the spike-y thingamajigs on the soles.
Naturally, I stepped on ice, slipped, and went into sub-orbital flight for several seconds before re-entering the atmosphere with a ker-THUD. Much cursing of stupidity ensued, along with the development of a softball-size hematoma, some bleeding, and bruising that resembled a map of South America.
Most people believe winter causes colds, flu, and other fender-benders of the body.
I believe winter causes stupidity.
I got a great big John Deere tractor stuck in a snowbank. That happened because I was stupid enough to be driving a great big John Deere tractor in a snowstorm near a snowbank on an icy lane.
I lost the use of a dependable farm utility vehicle, a six-wheel Gator, when I drove it into a snowbank trying to get to the great big John Deere tractor. I had to call a farm implement outfit in Bloomington to pull the Gator out of that snowbank. Naturally, that outfit also found repairs that the outfit decided were necessary. That cost me $209.
When the Gator was repaired and returned, I needed it to empty a horse manure wagon . . .
(Yes, I know. You came here for a basketball story and you’re getting a load of horse manure. Not the first load I’ve ever delivered, by the way. I once predicted Indiana would beat Kentucky in a big college basketball game. When Kentucky won, a reader sent me a plastic bag of brown stuff. He said, “Here is some pure Bluegrass horse manure, the same thing that column was made up of.”)
So I thought to empty that wagon and instead drove the Gator onto an icy ridge with spires that broke the drive chain. That one. $312.
Anyway, summer arrived today, with temperatures soaring into the high single figures. I was able to let my old mare, Sugar, out of her stall for the first time in four days. Sugar celebrated by sprinting out of there, leaping over snowbanks, and expressing the fullness of her joy by causing multiple evidences of flatulence to ring through the countryside.
The game tonight? Morton had better athletes, better basketball players, and lots more of both. Early in the season, you may remember, Pekin came to Morton. The halftime score was 53-0, Potters. This time it was 37-16 at the half and 46-18 after three quarters.
Morton is now 23-2 for the season and 11-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference. The victory, their 44th straight in conference play, assured the Potters of at least a tie for their fifth straight league championship. Pekin is 4-22 and 1-11.
Tenley Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 20. Lindsey Dullard had 10. Raquel Frakes had 6, Kathryn Reiman 5. Katie Krupa 5, Maddy Becker 3, Makenna Baughman 3. Claire Kraft 2. Addi Cox 2, Peyton Dearing 2, Megan Gold 1.