Mary Stisser, Ottawa defense stifle Newark in Ottawa Holiday Classic

OTTAWA — With some of her teammates struggling to make shots from the field, Ottawa’s Mary Stisser picked a great time for her best game.

Stisser scored a career-high 19 points Friday in a 53-18 win over Newark in pool play at the Ottawa Holiday Classic. The win improved Ottawa (11-3) to 2-0 in the tournament and the Lady Pirates will face Princeton on Saturday at noon in the first of the tournament’s semifinals.

Ottawa scored the first 12 points of the game, getting a pair of 3-pointers by Marlie Orlandi and baskets by Ella Schmitz, Hailey Larsen and Ashlynn Ganiere. Meanwhile, the Pirate defense was about as good as it gets, forcing Newark (0-9) into 13 turnovers in the first quarter alone and 26 in the first half. The Lady Norse got baskets from Mialia Maddox, Jade Mitchell and LeAnn Moness (team-high eight points) to make it 16-6 at the end of the first quarter.

The Lady Pirates then outscored Newark 12-2 in the second quarter to take a 28-8 lead into halftime.

“This was a team win,” said Stisser, who had just two points in the first half before erupting for 17 in the second. “Everyone contributed tonight.

“Our coaches preach defense all the time. Our offense wasn’t going as well as it has at times tonight, so it was good for us to get some easy baskets off of our defense.”

Stisser really heated up in the third quarter. After Skylar Dorsey opened the third with a 3-pointer, Stisser followed with a basket. Orlandi (eight points) made a free throw to put the Lady Pirates ahead 34-8. Stisser then scored the final nine points of the quarter for Ottawa, including a 3-pointer that gave them a 41-10 lead. She added another basket before the period ended and Ottawa took a 43-10 lead into the fourth.

The hot hand remained with Stisser at the start of the fourth as she drained back-to-back 3-pointers before heading to the bench with the rest of the Lady Pirate starters. Ainsley Leonard scored the final four points for Ottawa, while Newark got four points from Moness and two each from Mitchell and Sadie Pottinger.

“We take a lot of pride in our defense,” Ottawa coach Brent Moore said. “Every other day or so at practice, we touch on the fundamentals of defense just to keep it fresh in the girls' minds. We want to limit the other teams' touches in the paint, and we did a real good job of that today.

“When you aren’t shooting well, which happened to us today, the defense can turn into offense with transition baskets. Mary Stisser did a great job of picking up our offense. The goal for us in this tournament is to play Saturday night, so we had to handle what was in front of us. We did things the right way and we’re ready to go for the semifinals.”