Lady Pirates solid on both ends of floor in I-8 victory over Plano

OTTAWA — The Ottawa girls basketball team set the tone early and carried it throughout Wednesday night’s Interstate Eight Conference game against visiting Plano here at Kingman Gym.

The Lady Pirates opened the game’s scoring with back-to-back 3-pointers from Ella Marvel and Zoe Harris in the first minute-and-a-half. Then, on the defensive end, the hosts held the Lady Reapers to 1-of-15 shooting in the opening half and forced 13 turnovers.

When the dust finally settled on the running-clock fourth quarter, Ottawa had wrapped up a 41-11 victory.

Ottawa (6-5, 4-5) had contributions all around, with Harris leading the way with a game-high 13 points. The Lady Pirates also received six points each from Marvel (three assists, three steals), Cheyenne Joachim (game-best seven rebounds, two steals) and Grace Carroll, and four points and four assists from Gabi Krueger.

Plano (1-11, 0-9) was paced by four points and three rebounds from Grace Stevenson and three points from Rachel Martinez.

“It’s never easy to win in our conference, and you have to appreciate every one of those you can get,” said Ottawa coach Brent Moore, who also cited the play of Ryleigh Stehl, who posted two points, two rebounds and four steals off the bench. “Plano really played hard tonight as they did in our first meeting, but tonight was about us. We were coming off a couple tough losses, and we had a couple good days of practice before tonight.

“We talked about being really good on the defensive end, getting back to Lady Pirates defense in our man-to-man, and I thought we did that and set the tone early. I thought we were engaged with all five girls working as one regardless who was on the floor.

“Offensively we wanted to stay patient and fundamentally sound, and we felt the looks would be there. They were, and we were able to take advantage of them early and knock down some shots. I thought seeing the first couple shots go down really amped up our confidence, and it carried throughout the entire game.”

After the opening salvos from Marvel and Harris, the latter scored on a drive before Joachim added a lay-in off a back-door cut and a pair of free throws to give the home team a 12-4 lead.

The second frame was all Lady Pirates, as they outscored the visitors 12-0 to push the margin to 24-4 at halftime.

Ottawa opened the second half almost like they had the first, with Harris and Marvel swishing 3s, with a Krueger hoop in between. A 3-pointer by Martinez at the 5-minute, 22-second mark snapped an Ottawa 22-0 run and a Lady Reapers’ over-14-minute scoring drought.

“(Ottawa) just outworked us tonight, and that was what we told the girls after the game,” said Plano coach Dave Lay, who was minus his top two players. “We had one possession tonight where we had four or five offensive rebounds and just couldn’t convert, then Ottawa went right down and scored a layup. That 30-second span summed the game for us.

“It seemed like even when we did things well and how we are supposed to, things just didn’t go our way.

“I mean we are still diving on the floor for loose balls, hustling and getting the effort, but we are just not doing enough all around things well. There have been games this season where we have really put things together pretty well and consistently, but tonight that just didn’t happen.”

Plano is back in action traveling to take on Morris on Friday at 7 p.m., while Ottawa will take the trip west to battle rival La Salle-Peru on Saturday at 3 p.m.