Huge 3rd quarter helps lift Sycamore past Ottawa

OTTAWA —You’ll often hear coaches say that players make plays.

That was the case with under two minutes to go in the third quarter of Friday’s Interstate 8 Conference game between Sycamore and Ottawa at Kingman Gymnasium on senior night.

With the Spartans holding a five-point lead, senior guard Unique Shaw knocked the ball off a Pirates ballhandler in the backcourt, then in one motion jumped, corralled the ball while sailing out-of-bounds and flipped it behind his head towards the Sycamore basket.

There waiting at the hoop was his teammate Josiah Mitchell, who turned the hustle play into two points.

The basket was part of a 17-5 second-half run that helped the visitors record a 51-42 triumph.

“Sometimes the flashy stuff just comes out,” said Shaw, who had nine points, four rebounds and three assists. “We are always having competitions in practice, you know, who can outdo who, and sometimes you get a chance in a game to use some of that in a game. On that play, I saw Josiah out of the corner of my eye and just knew he would be going to the hoop.

“He should have dunked it, but I’ll let it slide this time.”

Sycamore, which improved to 20-7 overall and 7-2 in league play, trailed 11-5 after one quarter and 17-16 at halftime.

“We started slow, but all we talked about at halftime was starting the third quarter strong,” Shaw said. “To do that we needed to play better defense and that’s what we did. We were just quicker with everything we did.”

Xander Lewis led the Spartans with 12 points and three steals, while Michael Chami added 10 points and five rebounds, and Carter York and Mitchell chipped in eight points each.

A pair of 3-pointers by senior Connor Diederich and two hoops, including a two-handed dunk, from Owen Sanders helped push Ottawa out to the first-quarter edge. Lewis scored five points in the second to close the deficit to one at the intermission.

“We talked at halftime about using our defense to create offense and how we needed to push the ball in transition,” Sycamore coach Ethan Franklin said. “Ottawa does such a great job in their halfcourt defense, they make it tough for you to score, so you have to try and use pressure on the defensive end to create opportunities.

“We settled for too many outside shots in the first half, so we also talked about if we were in our half-court offense, we had to keep moving, be patient, and look for cutters. We did a better job in the second half when we were forced to try and score in the half-court.”

Sycamore outscored Ottawa 18-9 in the third quarter as other than a floater in the lane by Shaw in the opening 30 seconds, the other seven baskets were off layups or drives leading to layups, three each by Chami and Mitchell.

The Spartans were able to increase the lead to as many as 14 on Shaw’s triple from the right wing with just over five minutes to go.

Ottawa cut the led to seven with a minute to play after a trey by Sanders, a layup by Kyler Araujo and 10-foot jumper by Evan Snook, but two free throws each from Preston Picolotti and Mitchell seal the verdict.

Sanders posted a game-best 17 points and six rebounds for Ottawa (9-15, 1-8), with Snook and Diederich adding six points each.

“In the third quarter Shaw got loose for a couple of runners in the lane, and we gave up a couple of easy baskets on the weakside,” Ottawa coach Mark Cooper said. “I didn’t think for much of the game we had the energy that we normally have. We were just sluggish and just never really did get on track. If we are going to have success down the stretch here, we are going to have to play better.

Both sides return to action on Saturday as Sycamore plays Marmion Academy at 8 p.m. in the Indian Creek Shootout, while Ottawa heads south down Route 23 to play rival Streator at 4 p.m.