OTTAWA —After a fast-paced opening quarter in Friday’s championship of the Ottawa Holiday Tournament, the Ottawa girls basketball team held a four-point lead, but then really turned things on in the second.
Switching to a triangle-and-2 defense, to limit touches by Landrie Callahan and Layken Callahan, the Pirates limited Morris to 0-for-8 shooting and forced five turnovers in the period. On the offensive end, the hosts used eight points from Mary Stisser and four more from Hailey Larsen to explode the margin to 19 at the half and eventually post a 59-39 victory at Kingman Gymnasium.
Ottawa, which fell to Morris by five with the Callahans combining for 40 points on Dec. 10, improved to 13-3 on the season. Morris suffered its first loss in the campaign in 15 games.
“We’ve worked on that triangle-and-2 defense for at least eight minutes every practice since the first time we played them,” Ottawa coach Brent Moore said. “After that game we felt when we played them again it was going to be our best option. We started in straight man, but we told the girls be ready to switch things up. We had some other things defensively in our back pocket, but we were able to not have to go to those with how well the triangle-and-2 worked. Credit the rotation of Mary, Ashlyn (Ganiere) and Ella (Schmitz), they were the chasers and did exactly the job we were hoping for.”
Stisser led Ottawa with 15 points, three rebounds and three assists, while Schmitz added 14 points and three assists and tournament MVP Marlie Orlandi 13 points, three rebounds and a pair of steals. Hailey Larsen had eight points, seven rebounds and five steals and Ganiere six points and three assists.
“We always want to play solid defense, and I thought we did tonight, but I also felt our offense was pretty good as well,” Orlandi said with the Pirates hitting 20 of 42 (48%) of their shots from the floor. “First, we took care of the ball (five turnovers), second, we did a good job of finding seams with our dribble, and third, we found the open teammate.
“The last game we played them (the Callahans) really hurt us. We had the game plan that we were going to do a better job this time around. I really felt going to the triangle got us going. We were able to get a couple stops right at the start of the second and just kept the momentum going for there.”
Morris used five points from Landrie Callahan and four of a game-high 18 points from Lily Hansen to cut the disadvantage to 37-28 midway through the third. But Ottawa responded with a 9-1 run to close out the quarter, including back-to-back 3s by Schmitz and Orlandi in the final minute.
Layken Callahan finished with eight points and Landrie Callahan seven points and a game-best eight rebounds.
“We need Lily Hansen out on the floor, and when she had to go to the bench early in the second quarter with foul trouble we struggled,” Morris coach Mike Lutz said. “This was also the first time this season we’ve seen a triangle-and-2 defense and we didn’t react to it very well. The combination of those two things hurt us. We just weren’t patient enough on offense after the first quarter.
“I was proud of the way we battled back in the third quarter and cut Ottawa’s lead down to 10, but they were able to put a spurt together to push the lead back to 20 going to the fourth.”
Orlandi, Stisser and Larsen, as well as the Callahans were named to the all-tournament team.
Ottawa is off until Jan. 3 when it hosts Washington. Morris returns to action the same day at Dixon.
“This team has so much trust and each other and us as coaches,” Moore said. “The last few games we have really played solid team basketball. We just have to keep executing and keeping what we’ve been doing going.”