Lady Potters 72
Springfield 44
Good heavens, did you see that? The Potters had six people on the floor in that fourth quarter, maybe seven, sometimes eight. Nothing else explains what they did. There’d be one of ‘em flying down the lane, three more grabbing at the ricocheting rebound, after which four threw themselves ass over teakettle to wrestle the rolling-loose ball away from the Springfield girls, who were bewitched, bewildered, and beleaguered into a 28-point loss when with five minutes to play they still had a chance to win.
Here we need video with surround sound.
Words are good, yes, words are very good, but I need audio-visual help to make best use of the hieroglyphics I scrawled into my notebook in the last five minutes of this opening game in the State Farm Holiday Classic, played at Bloomington High School.
Like this note, scribbled when it was 51-41, Morton, 4:42 to play . . .
“Iz ft, miss 2d, re, pass, Gr 4’.”
Meaning Izzy Hutchinson made a free throw, missed the second, somehow materialized down the right side of the lane to steal away the rebound, took two dribbles into the paint (maybe three?) and passed (handed?) the ball to Graci Junis, who scored on a little 4-footer. A little 4-footer? Big in the moment, it was Morton’s first bucket in the quarter, and it set off a 20-3 run that included stuff like this . . .
“Iz lu, T pass, off ob play, who threw it in?”
Meaning the score became 62-44 when Tatym Lamprecht, at the top of the circle, took a baseline in-bounds pass (from someone, maybe the ghost of Brandi Bisping?) and moved the ball to Hutchinson breaking down the left sidre of the lane for a layup.
All that was part of Morton’s game-closing 21-3 run in which Springfield scored only once in th4e last 5 minutes and caused Bob Becker, the Morton coach, to do what every basketball coach likes to do: praise his team’s defense for being so good it jump-starts the offense.
“All of our great teams started with great intensity at the defensive end,” said the coach whose teams have won four state championships. “Tonight we had lots of hustle plays, kids on the floor, scrappy, played hard. That’s gotta be part of who we are. Scrappy, hustle, relentless effort all over the place.”
Of all the Potters-great-teams’ 28-point victories over the years, this one is unique.
They won the first quarter, 20-4. And they won the last 5 minutes, 21-3.
So, in 13 minutes, Morton outscored Springfield, 41-7.
In the other 19 minutes, Springfield won 37-31.
Becker, said of the early-late dominance: “We showed what we’re capable of.” As for the other part, he allowed himself a big winner’s wry smile: “And we showed what we’re capable of.” Capable of poor second-quarter defense. “Complacency? Maybe a little lazy,” the coach said. But he really liked that fourth quarter. “Layups and free throws – that’s what good teams do, extending the lead. Usually, I would’ve subbed more at the end. But that group did a great job and they earned the chance to play.”
No Potter did it better at the end than Lamprecht, who scored 12 of her 24 points in the fourth quarter and, given the ball out front, ran the Potters offense while daring Springfield to make a defensive mistake: attacking, she scored on three driving layups and six free throws.
What I like most about Lamprecht’s play is that she’s a senior, in her second season after transferring from East Peoria, and while she has always been a star, she spent most of last season hiding from stardom. Now she has grown into a team leader, a captain, a high-fiver, a star happy to be where she is.
She has an explanation.
“I love this team,” she said
Next up for the fith-seeded Potters Iis #4 seed Normal Community, at 5:30 Wednesday at Bloomington High.
Morton’s scoring tonight: Lamprecht 24, Hutchinson 17, 6 each from Junis, Addy Engel, Ellie VanMeenen and Magda Lopko, Julia Laufenberg 5, Abbey Pollard 2.