Thursday’s Class 3A La Salle-Peru Regional championship game had the feel of a levee trying to hold back rising floodwaters – the high-powered Sterling Golden Warriors the relentless waters looking for an opening to burst free; the dug-in and dedicated Ottawa Pirates the levee stoically doing everything they could to just hold on.

For each and every one of the game’s 32 minutes, the levee did not break.

“Yeah, that explosion never came,” Ottawa senior co-captain Mary Stisser said. “Our defense was great tonight.”

Ottawa held regional top seed Sterling 25 points below its season average, upsetting its old North Central Illinois Conference rival 33-27 for the L-P Regional title and a trip to next week’s 3A Galesburg Sectional, where the Pirates open against top-seeded Washington on Tuesday.

They did it with their defense, a diamond-and-one focused on slowing down dynamic Sterling point guard Joslynn James.

“It took a lot of preparation,” Pirates junior co-captain Ashlynn Ganiere said. “We knew their plays like the back of our hands. We prepared, and we knew we could execute. Everyone was so good in our diamond, and it was our first time running it too. ...

“Every piece of the puzzle was put together to bring this home.”

The Pirates (20-9) took the lead in the opening minute, Ganiere knocking down a 3-pointer to put Ottawa ahead 3-0. Then – through 11 second-quarter turnovers and 29 for the game forced by the increasingly aggressive Sterling defense, minibursts of offense by the Golden Warriors in both the second and third quarters, a 67-to-28 advantage for Sterling in shots attempted and one final push cutting the margin to three at the midway point of the fourth quarter – Ottawa made that lead hold up.

“You know, I felt we were [on the verge of a run] all night as well,” Sterling coach Taylor Jackson said. “We kept talking to our girls in timeouts and at the end of quarters and at halftime saying, ‘The ball’s going to fall. We know it’s going to fall.’ Even when we’ve had challenging games, it always feels like there’s a time where we click.

“We never clicked tonight. And that’s really a credit to Ottawa.”

Leading a high-energy but low-efficiency Sterling attack – the Golden Warriors shot just 16.4% (11 of 67) from the field, including 4.6% (1 of 22) from 3-point range – was the aforementioned Joslynn James with eight points and six steals. Nia Harris added six points, nine rebounds and four steals; Brenley Johnson five points; Joslyn Green four points and five rebounds before fouling out with 2:36 to play; and Jaelyn James four points, four rebounds, four steals and three assists.

Sterling came in averaging 52.5 points per contest.

“We struggled tonight,” Jackson said, “but this group, these seniors, they have been phenomenal. They love to compete, they love to play, they love each other. They’ve really built this program ... and we hope we see that continue into next year, because we return quite a few kids.”

Ottawa’s Kennedy Kane was the game’s only double-digit scorer, draining a pair of comeback-deflating 3s during her 10-point third quarter en route to 13 on the night.

“Kennedy can put up a 3 and shut down an entire gym,” said Stisser, who drove and dished for assists on both of those key 3s. “That kid is so composed, I have nothing but respect for that freshman. She’s been huge for our team this year.”

Stisser added eight points, nine rebounds and four assists; Ganiere six points, nine rebounds and three steals; Hailey Thrush six points; and Libby Muffler no points but eight rebounds and three blocked shots.

Ottawa led 14-11 at the half, 26-21 through three and 28-25 midway through the fourth and final quarter.

“It felt like we were just hanging on and hanging on,” Pirates coach Brent Moore said. “I thought we did a really good job maintaining what we were doing with our defensive game plan. I credit our girls, and I’m proud of them, because they were engaged for two long days of practice, scouting.

“Everything they did paid off tonight.”