Ottawa shoots past Plano; Princeton falls just short to Oak Forest

OTTAWA — The second day of the Dean Riley Shootin’ the Rock Thanksgiving Tournament at Kingman Gymnasium saw Ottawa and Oak Forest picking up victories over Plano and Princeton respectively in the final two pool play games on Tuesday. Sterling defeated Pontiac, 57-37, in the evening’s opening contest.

The tournament resumes on Friday with a schedule of Streator vs. Princeton at 11:30 a.m., La Salle-Peru vs. Oak Forest at 1 p.m., Plano vs. Pontiac at 2:30 p.m., Oak Forest vs. Streator at 4 p.m., Princeton vs. La Salle-Peru at 5:30 p.m., and Ottawa vs. Sterling at 7 p.m.

Ottawa 78, Plano 62

The Pirates (2-0) led 18-13 after the first eight minutes, 40-37 at halftime and 57-51 heading to the final quarter. Holding a five-point lead a minute into the fourth, Ottawa used five consecutive points by Kyler Araujo to extend the lead.

Ottawa finished hitting a sparkling 28-of 49 (54%) of the shots from the floor, including 15-of-25 (60%) in the second half, and held a 40-20 advantage in rebounding and passed for 20 assists on 27 field goals.

Araujo led the Pirates with 21 points and five rebounds, followed by Evan Snook (18 points, six rebounds), Aric Threadgill (14 points, nine rebounds, three assists), Hezekiah Joachim (12 points, seven rebounds, two steals), and Owen Sanders (eight points, eight rebounds and eight assists).

“The first thing that I felt would be key tonight was limiting our live-ball turnovers and not allowing them to score in transition,” Ottawa coach Mark Cooper said. “Plano was able to get some fast-break baskets in the first half, but I thought we did a better job in the second half of not allowing that to happen. They force you to play at a very fast pace, so spacing the floor in so important. I though our guys made plays when they had to and as the game went on became a little more comfortable with the pace and how the game was being played.

“Having 20 team assists is a big number. I thought our overall team passing was very good, but I also thought we moved well without the ball to help create opportunities to set up passes that led to baskets. You can’t play against an aggressive team like Plano on your heels and we did a good job of attacking.”

The Reapers (0-2) shot extremely well in the first half as well, 17-of-31 (55%), but saw that drop to just 30% (9-of-30) in the final 16 minutes.

Amari Bryan scored 12 of his 21 points in the second quarter, while Gabe Steel had 13 points and Vinny Cesario 12 points for Plano.

“We want to muddy things up defensively and try to push the ball up the floor offensively. That’s the style we need to play,” Plano coach Kyle Kee said. “I though in the first half I thought we did the things we wanted to do. Credit Ottawa, they made plays when they needed to, and they passed the ball well all night. They did an excellent job against our pressure.

“Then in the second half we didn’t shoot the ball as well as we did in the first and that’s now two straight games like that. ... I’m not sure what the fix is yet. I also felt like our halfcourt defense was really non-existent in the second half and because of that Ottawa got the ball to the middle, and to the rim way too easy and way too often.”

Oak Forest 61, Princeton 56

The Tigers fell behind by 10 points on a few occasions throughout their game against the Bengals, but nearly each time they found a way to scrap their way back to even.

Down 11 with just over two minutes to play, baskets by Noah Laporte, Jordan Reinhardt and Ryan Jagers helped slice the lead to a 59-56 with 11 seconds remaining. However, from there Oak Forest made 4-of-4 free throws to seal the win.

LaPorte and Reinhardt both finished with 21 points and nine rebounds with the latter also recording four steals for Princeton, which shot 24-of-47 from the field and held a 33-26 advantage on the boards.

“It wasn’t a bad effort for barely a week of practices and also missing a handful of guys due to injuries or sickness that we are going to be counting on to contribute on a regular basis this season,” Princeton coach Jason Smith said. “We also have some inexperience in the lineup as far as varsity level basketball goes, so while I’m not happy with the final outcome I thought we played alright. We fought, but we also shot ourselves in the foot in some key times.

“I really thought we handled Oak Forest’s ball-pressure defense pretty well. That might be the most ball-pressure we see all season right off the bat in Game 1. I’m sure at times we looked a little rough or a little helter-skelter, but overall, we have a number of guys who can handle the basketball, and I thought they all did a pretty good job of handling the pressure.”