SERENA - The Serena Huskers and Ottawa Pirates girls basketball teams both brought some impressive guard play to their non-conference meeting Monday on Al Stegman Court in Serena, with both rosters boasting all-conference, all-area and even all-state guards.
With that guard play virtually cancelling out, Ottawa’s 50-34 victory turned out to be more of an inside job.
Pirates sophomore post Cheyenne Joachim recorded a double-double of 16 points and 11 rebounds — adding two assists, a blocked shot and a game-high four steals to boot — in a game in which Ottawa scored exactly 16 more points and pulled down exactly 11 more rebounds, with a 30 to 19 edge, than the host Huskers.
“Cheyenne was unbelievably good tonight,” Ottawa coach Brent Moore said. “That was the best she’s played in a varsity game by far. She controlled the block, she controlled the boards. ...
“If we’re going to be good, she has to continue doing things like that. She’s a big part of what we’re going to be doing.”
Joachim scored in every quarter, her 10 points in the middle two periods the difference-maker despite going 0-for-6 from the free-throw line.
“I just tried to take it up so I could make the shot or they could foul me and then try to make my free throws, though I couldn’t do that tonight,” Joachim said. “I wanted more [rebounds], 15 at least, but I was close. Next game maybe.”
Ottawa improves to a perfect 6-0 heading into its Wednesday home opener against Dixon.
Serena — which scored the night’s opening bucket on a Paisley Twait steal/drive/layup just 19 seconds in but did not score for the remainder of the opening quarter and never led again — slips to 4-2 ahead of its Thursday evening Little Ten Conference opener at home against Earlville.
“We didn’t box out well, gave them three, four, five shots at a time,” Huskers coach Jim Jobst said. “Ottawa got a lot of inside buckets that way, and I thought they worked their screens really well and penetrated. They got a lot more looks inside than we did.”
Twait’s game-starting basket was answered by a 14-0 Pirates run, the Ottawa lead reaching 10 points (at 12-2) on a Brooke Waddell bucket off a nice-look Ella Marvel assist with two and a half minutes left in the opening quarter.
Led by Twait and all-stater Katie Baker shaking free from the shadowing defense of Gabi Krueger a precious few times in the middle quarters, Serena drew as close as five points (at 26-21) in the third, but back-to-back, back-breaking 3s from first Zoe Harris and then Brooke Waddell early in the fourth extended the Pirates’ advantage back into comfortable territory.
For Ottawa after Joachim’s big night, both Grace Carroll (five rebounds in a high-energy effort off the bench) and Marvel (four assists) scored nine points. Harris added eight points with six rebounds, while Waddell canned two 3s to finish with six tallies.
Twait finished with a team-best dozen points, with Jenna Setchell scoring 11 and Baker held to seven to go with her team-high six rebounds.
“Gabi did an unbelievable job on Baker,” Moore said. “What did she have, seven [points], and the one 3 she had was contested? We were focused on her because she’s an outstanding player, and we gave credit to her in terms of how we prepared for Serena.
“Serena’s a well-coached team, high-character kids. They’re going to do good things this year.”
“You always know what Ottawa’s going to bring — good man-to-man defense and running their stuff really well,” Jobst said of the Pirates. “Brent does a really good job getting his team ready. They ran their stuff well.
“We had moments where we were too, but we just couldn’t sustain it.”