PLANO — Coming into a fourth and final game in four days at the 60th Plano Christmas Classic, Ottawa coach Mark Cooper was looking for his team to build off the two prior solid outings by coming out in Saturday’s consolation championship game against Oregon with high energy.

Mission accomplished.

The Pirates came out of the gates overall strong against the Hawks, including making good on 6-of-7 shots from beyond the arc in the opening quarter to eventually finish the tournament at 3-1 with a 72-50 triumph at Reaper Gymnasium.

“We put ourselves in this position after dropping our opening game here back on Wednesday,” said Cooper, his club improving to 7-5 on the season. “We did the only thing we could do and that was to try and play better basketball the last three days. I thought our last three games we’ve have done some really good things in spurts, and maybe not for four quarters, but we were able to bounce back for three wins. I thought we had very good energy today from start to finish.”

We had a good bounce to us today, everyone saw some time on the floor, and we came out 3-1 for the week.”

—  Mark Cooper, Ottawa boys basketball coach

In the opening eight minutes, Ottawa’s Huston Hart, Evan Snook and Cooper Knoll each knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, the former’s triple just before the horn pushing the Pirates advantage to 24-7.

Hart then splashed two more treys in the second quarter, Snook scored on a pair of drives, and Aric Threadgill sank a 3 with two seconds remaining to give Ottawa a 39-26 lead.

The Pirates, with Hart and Knoll posting four points each in the third, continued to lead 52-36 heading to the final quarter. To start the fourth, Hart’s fifth 3-pointer of the game and a drive by Knoll pushed the margin to 57-36 as Ottawa went on to post a season-high in points in a game.

Hart finished with a game- and career-high 21 points, to go along with four rebounds, four assists and a pair of steals. Knoll — an all-tournament selection — had 18 points and nine rebounds, while Snook registered 10 points and four assists. Keevon Peterson added six points and five rebounds, with Lucas Goetz chipping in five points off the bench.

Keaton Salsbury had 14 points and Jameson Caposey 13 points to pace Oregon.

Ottawa, which shot 50% (15 of 30) overall and 56% (9 of 16) from 3-point range in the opening half, finished the contest 27 of 60 (45%) and 10 of 23 (43%) from the arc. On the defensive end, the Pirates held Oregon to 37% (20 of 54) from the field and won the rebound battle 40-28.

“In tournament play – like here at Plano – it’s four days straight and everything is so erratic, so performance and energy levels can change from day to day,” Cooper said. “I’m very proud of the guys for how hard they played today, and I think we made some solid improvement as a basketball team the last few days. Today, a fourth game in four days, it wasn’t really about Xs and Os, but more of ‘Let’s come out with high energy from the start and carry it through until the end. When you play with good energy, and you share the basketball consequently you tend to shoot the ball better. That was truly the case for us today.

“We had a good bounce to us today, everyone saw some time on the floor, and we came out 3-1 for the week. Now we’ll get back at it on Tuesday to get ready for Wednesday.”

Ottawa will be back on the court on Wednesday when it hosts Morris at Kingman Gymnasium.