The Ottawa boys basketball team jumped out to a comfortable lead early in Monday’s pool play contest against Princeton at the Dean Riley Shootin’ The Rock Thanksgiving Tournament.

The Pirates then continued to build off that early push and eventually posted a 60-36 victory over the Tigers in Kingman Gymnasium.

The hosts led 17-8 after the opening period, 35-23 at halftime and 46-29 heading to the final eight minutes.

Ottawa was led by 14 points from sophomore Blake Schlitz, while senior Owen Sanders (eight rebounds) and sophomore Rory Moore (five assists, four steals) each netted 11 points. Junior Jack Carroll chipped in nine points and four rebounds, and senior Hezekiah Joachim added seven points and five steals. The Pirates hit 24 of 55 shots from the field (44%), including 8 of 21 from beyond the arc, and held a 36-24 margin on the boards but committed 20 turnovers.

“We turned the ball over way too much and were sluggish for the most part,’ Ottawa coach Mark Cooper said. ”It’s the first game, and give credit to Princeton for some of that as well. I know we are capable of taking care of the ball better than we did tonight.

“Defensively we gave up a couple of back door layups and were a little undisciplined at times, but we made up for those things by rebounding the ball well, especially in the first half, to make up for some lapses.

“We played hard all game long and our two sophomores looked very comfortable on the floor, which was good to see. We’re going to have to jump things up [on Tuesday] and play a much cleaner game.”

For Princeton, which hit 14 of 39 shots from the floor (36%) and turned the ball over 30 times, senior Jackson Mason had 12 points and four rebounds, sophomore Jack Oester nine points and two steals, and senior Gavin Lanham seven points and four rebounds.

The Pirates led by six midway into the second quarter after a pair of free throws by Oester and then used runs of 6-0 and 7-2 to hold a 12-point halftime advantage.

Ottawa then used a 7-0 burst at the halfway point of the third quarter to push the lead to 46-27.

“I thought our inexperience showed tonight, especially in the third quarter. We turned the ball over way too much tonight, but especially in the second half,” Princeton coach Jason Smith said. “Like I told the kids after the game that’s 30 times where we didn’t give ourselves a chance to shoot the ball.

“I thought Deacon [Gutshall] battled his butt off and really defended Sanders really well. As a sophomore and giving up a few inches, I thought he did a great job of making Sanders work for everything he got. As a team we showed spurts of good defense, now the key is stretching those spurts into quarters, halves and then an entire game.

“The effort was there from start to finish, but we just made too many mistakes. It’s something we are going to have to play through for a while.”

Both squads are back in action Tuesday with Princeton playing Pontiac at 5 p.m. and Ottawa taking on Sterling at 6:30 p.m.