Class 3A No. 1-ranked Washington rolls past Ottawa 54-17

OTTAWA – The Ottawa girls basketball team struggled on both ends of the floor against Washington on Friday night at Kingman Gym.

The Panthers, tied for the No. 1 ranking with Dixon in the latest Associated Press Class 3A poll before the holidays, bolted out of the gates shooting well while scoring the contest’s opening 10 points and continued on that path on the way to a 54-17 victory.

Washington (18-0) — which led 21-4 after one, 29-8 at halftime and netted the opening 16 points of the second half — finished the night hitting 21 of 39 (54%) overall and 7 of 15 (47%) from beyond the arc. The Pirates, on the other hand, made good on just 5 of 28 (19%) from the floor, including 1 of 15 from 3-point range.

“We come out of tonight knowing we could have played better,“ Ottawa coach Brent Moore said, his squad falling to 11-4. ”But when you’re playing a state-ranked team, let alone a Washington team that’s No. 1, you can’t dig yourself a hole. They came out very strong, and despite having a good number of open looks we just couldn’t find a way to put the ball through the hoop.

“It’s a make-or-miss game, and when you don’t consistently convert against a very good opponent, this is 99 times out of 100 the outcome.”

All five Washington starters — Avery Tibbs, Rebecca McDougall, Adriene Donald, Danielle Guedet and Mazzy O’Brien — scored in the opening five minutes of the game to push out to a 14-3 advantage. Also in that stretch, Ottawa misfired on its opening seven shots and committed three turnovers.

“They were able to go up double digits in the first four minutes and then just stretched the lead from there,” Moore said. “They had us playing on our heels as the game went along and had us playing timid basketball. It’s an ‘if,’ but ‘if’ we could have made a couple of our shots in the first quarter, maybe our energy is a little different moving forward.

“Nobody around this team isn’t frustrated with how things went tonight, but it happened, and we have to move on. It doesn’t get any easier with Oak Forest and Sycamore coming up for us next week.”

The Panthers cooled off a little in the second but then went on the aforementioned 16-0 burst the first six minutes of the third, with O’Brien netting 12 of her game-high 24 points.

The Panthers, which won both the rebound (27-15) and turnover (7-13) battles, shot 11 of 15 (73%) in the final 16 minutes and finished with 16 assists on 21 made field goals.

Mary Stisser led Ottawa with nine points, and Hailey Larsen contributed five rebounds.

“I was very impressed and happy with our defense tonight, and that is something we’ve been preaching to the girls all season,“ Washington coach Kim Barth said.

”We knew Ottawa had a bunch of girls who can really shoot the ball well, and that they were going to run an offense with a lot of picks. We wanted to switch on every screen. It’s something we’ve done before this season, but we’re not quite where we need to be yet. I feel like we did a good job of taking away what Ottawa wanted to do offensively. I also thought we rebounded well, which was another big key.

“We have a group where the scoring can come from anyone on any given night. Tonight, it was Mazzy, and I thought besides the points she played a very solid overall game for us.”

Ottawa is back in action on Wednesday when it hosts Oak Forest.