Lady Potters 49
Peoria Notre Dame 46
“To be where we were,” Bob Becker said, meaning lost and wandering a month ago, “and to be where we are now,” meaning laughter and dancing in the locker room, “these kids are a FORCE! This was FUN! There’s some mojo going on. There’s belief going on in our locker room. These kids will not be afraid to play anybody now.”
Four straight victories now, three over teams that came in 17-5, 19-5, and, tonight, Peoria Notre Dame, 19-2 and ranked #7 in Class 3A.
“What a great win . . .”
I had the tape recorder going. I’m a practiced note-taker, a hundred years at it, but when a coach’s team wins four straight over good teams after losing five straight to mostly stiffs, I cannot keep up with the quotes tumbling out. So let’s go to the tape . . ..
“What a great win on the road…”
They came to Notre Dame’s bandbox of a gym, the benches on one side against a concrete block wall, 11 rows of bleachers on the other, balconies on the end with no seats.
“ . . . against a quality team . . .”
And those last words reminded Becker of what he wanted to say next, and say it loudly, with italics and exclamation points.
“And we ARE a quality team!”
He took a breath. We stood in a hallway outside his team’s locker room. “You hear them in there!” Sounds of celebration bounced around the corridor. “I love it. NOBODY’s gonna want to play the Potters.”
And he said . . .
“There’s something good boiling in our veins right now.”
They had been down 10 points in the first four minutes. They were down nine late in the second quarter. But they scored the first half’s last eight points to make it 26-25. In the third quarter’s first 30 seconds, they took the lead 28-26 on an Ellie VanMeenen 3-pointer. And when VanMeenen threw in another 3, it gave Morton a 37-34 lead with 23 seconds left in third quarter.
From there on, the Potters never trailed. Neither team saw defeat as possible and kept clawing back from deficits. So let’s cut to the chase.
It was 46-all with 19.8 seconds to play.
The Potters’ junior guard, Izzy Hutchinson, was at the free throw line. Of Hutchinson’s many, many, many virtues – no one doubt her ball-handling skills, defensive savvy, and endless willingness, even eagerness, to hurl her body every which way in in pursuit of loose balls – despite her many, many, many virtues, no one ever thought of her as Steph Curry at the line.
So what does Isabella Hutchinson do?
Her first free throw rattles the rim. The ball hits the front of the rim in a way that makes the iron rattle against its glass connection. A fellow wearing hearing aids can hear the rattle from three rows up in the bleachers. It’s the distressing sound of the ball rattling the iron – until, blessed silence, the balls falls into net.
Morton up, 47-46.
Izzy’s second free throw also is a rattler. Only this time it rolls to the back of the hoop, onto that little island of iron attached to the backboard. Maybe you’ve seen balls roll back there and just sit there. Not Izzy’s. It rattles and it rolls and it circles the iron until, praise be, it too falls in.
Morton, 48-46.
And Izzy Hutchinson, in a frantic fourth quarter during which Peoria Notre Dame refused to lose, Izzy Hutchinson, who had not shot a free throw in the game’s first 30 minutes, made 5 of 6 free throws in the last 2 minutes and 8 seconds when it had to be done.
Free throw shooting, I submit, is the newest of her many, many virtues.
Notre Dame had one last shot, an unanswered prayer, and Tatym Lamprecht closed the deal with a free throw at :01.6.
Whatever’s going on – whatever’s “boiling” in these Potters, now 15-9 for the season – Ellie VanMeenen could only laugh tonight. “This was really, really, really fun,” she said. “We’re really clicking as a team.”
Addy Engel, the Potters’ indefatigable rebounder, said, “We’re really playing together more. We’re pursuing the ball. We’re the first ones on the ground. That ball is OURS.”
Lamprecht said, “We believe in ourselves now. We’re the best team.”
Morton’s scoring tonight: VanMeenen 14, Engel 12, Hutchinson 9, Graci Junis 6, Lamprecht 6, Julia Laufenberg 2.