Girls basketball: Grace Carroll, Marlie Orlandi lead the way as Ottawa defense shuts down Prairie Central

FAIRBURY – Eventually, Ottawa’s offense took over in the Pirates’ 61-31 victory over the Hawks on Tuesday evening at the Prairie Central Turkey Tournament.

But it was the Pirates defense that took over first.

After an even first quarter that Prairie Central led the majority of, Ottawa’s in-your-face defense in the second quarter created five times as many turnovers as made shots allowed, leading the Pirates to an 11-point lead at halftime and eventually a 30-point, running-clock win to move to 2-0 on the season and in the tournament.

“I think we had a good defensive plan going into it,” sophomore Marlie Orlandi said, “shutting down No. 0 [Chloe Sisco], their main player, then staying on No. 21 [Mariya Sisco], making sure she didn’t get loose and hot. If we kept both of them down, our game plan was set, and we knew we were going to win.

“So we came in with a lot of energy, did our job and came out with a win.”

While Ottawa’s defensive shutdown of the Hawks (1-1) was a total-team effort, there were some standouts. Ella Schmitz recorded three steals; both Kendall Lowery and Morgan Stone notched two; Grace Carroll tallied four steals while holding Prairie Central star sharpshooter Chloe Sisco to 11 points; and Orlandi limited secondary scorer Mariya Sisco to 10 points while also recording game-highs of five steals and 18 points.

“Last night when we played Pontiac it was a nice opening win ... but defensively we just felt we weren’t where we needed to be for how hard we’d worked the first two weeks of practice in terms of engagement and talking, especially on the back side,” Pirates coach Brent Moore said. “You know who really took control of that was Grace Carroll, our senior leader.

“[Prairie Central] has an excellent player in No. 0, and her sister’s good, too. We challenged Grace with trying to take [Chloe Sisco] out of the game and had Marlie on No. 21 [Mariya Sisco], and they were both excellent.

“I thought as a team we were really engaged on defense.”

The end result of that stifling defense turned a 12-all game at the close of the first quarter into a 29-18 Ottawa advantage at halftime. Prairie Central’s only two buckets of the quarter were long Chloe Sisco 3s, while the Pirates forced 10 turnovers.

Ottawa repeated the feat in the third quarter by limiting its hosts to six points. Meanwhile, the Pirates offense began feeding off the defense and the resulting confidence by ballooning their lead to 20 points (44-24) on a Carroll transition layup late in the third and then to 30 points (57-25) courtesy of a Skylar Dorsey 3 off Carroll’s seventh and final assist of the night.

Assists were almost as telling a statistic as Ottawa’s 29-15 edge in turnovers forced. Over half (11 of 21) of the Pirates’ baskets were assisted, coming in the flow of the offense or on two-on-one or three-on-one breakaways after steals. The Hawks tallied only two assists on their nine field goals converted.

“They were frustrating us for sure,” Prairie Central coach Gabby Zeedyk said. “We usually feed off of our defense, but [Ottawa] did run a very good, packed-paint man-to-man and took away Chloe Sisco, and we just couldn’t hit from anywhere else on the floor.

“They knew our number, they knew what we wanted to do, and we didn’t adjust very well today, unfortunately.”

Ottawa leaders included Orlandi’s 18 points and five steals; Carrol’s 11 points, seven assists and four steals; eight points apiece from Dorsey and Hailey Larsen; six points, three assists and three steals courtesy of Schmitz; and a six-point, seven-rebound showing by Lowery.

After an off day Wednesday, the Pirates play Peoria Notre Dame (1-0) on Thursday and East Peoria on Saturday to close out the tournament.