Boys basketball: La Salle-Peru tops Ottawa for fifth place; Streator closes “Shootin’ the Rock” with first win

OTTAWA — On the final day of the Dean Riley “Shootin’ The Rock” Thanksgiving Tournament on Saturday, all eight teams were looking to end the event on a high note.

In the fifth-place game, La Salle-Peru (2-2) was able to do just that with a 47-38 triumph over rival Ottawa (1-3) at Kingman Gymnasium.

Ottawa had won the last six meetings, 13 of the last 14 overall and nine of the past 10 at Kingman against La Salle-Peru.

“This opening week at this tournament starts to define who you are as a team. That can change as the season moves along, but this week our identity has been a group that is going to play solid defense and is going to give the ball to the other team,” L-P coach Jim Cherveny said. “Like I told them, if we are going to turn the ball over as much as we have this week, we are going to have to play that much harder on the defensive end.

“With both our teams, you had to figure it would be a grind-it-out, win-ugly type of game, and that’s pretty much how it played out.”

The Cavaliers led 13-5 after the opening eight minutes and 23-13 at halftime. The Pirates opened the second half on an 11-3 burst to cut the disadvantage to two, but L-P regrouped to lead 34-28 heading to the fourth.

L-P began the final frame on a 10-4 run and kept Ottawa at arm’s length until the final horn.

“We had a small lapse there in the third quarter where Ottawa went on a run,” Cherveny said. “All three previous games this week we’ve had a lead at halftime, and we talked about that at the break how we’d been in this position before, but have we learned from those past experiences.

“We did a good job of responding to Ottawa’s run and finished the game strong.”

Josh Senica led the Cavs with 22 points and 10 rebounds, both game-highs. London Cabrera posted nine points and five steals, Jack Jereb seven points, and Seth Adams six points, three rebounds and five steals.

L-P outshot Ottawa 46% to 35% and won the rebounding battle 25-21.

“I thought L-P dictated the terms of the game and were the more physical basketball team here today,” Ottawa coach Mark Cooper said. “They also had a lot of deflections on passes, and we didn’t handle that very well either. We didn’t have very good energy and were sluggish from the opening tip. With how they guarded us, we just weren’t able to run a good offense, and that’s a credit to L-P.

“We just weren’t good enough today, but we’ll get back to practice on Monday and get some things figured out.”

Ottawa was paced by Payton Knoll, who netted eight of his team-high 14 points in the third quarter, and had seven rebounds, three assists and three steals. Conner Price (three rebounds, two steals) and Huston Hart each scored seven points apiece.

“To be honest, we were very inconsistent all week on both ends of the floor,” Cooper said. “We had stretches where we played very good basketball, but we also had too many stretches where we struggled. We did enough good things to hang around in a couple games this week, but we are going to have to get a lot better if we are going to find any success moving forward this season.”

L-P is next in action Tuesday in Spring Valley to take on Hall before its home and Interstate 8 Conference opener on Friday against Plano. Ottawa is off until Friday when Morris is in town for an I-8 curtain-raiser.

Streator 65, Marengo 36: The Bulldogs (1-3) captured their first victory of the season against the Indians in the day’s seventh-place game. Streator led 14-11 after the first quarter, 30-18 at halftime, then used a 21-11 third-quarter advantage to all but put the game away.

Christian Benning paced the Bulldogs with a game-high 20 points to go along with five rebounds and three steals. Quinn Baker posted a 13-point, 12-rebound double-double, while Matt Williamson (four assists), Logan Aukland (four assists, four steals) and Landon Muntz (five rebounds, six steals) all scored six points each.

“We came out today and played a competitive 32 minutes, and that wasn’t the case at all here on Friday night against Oak Forest,” Streator coach Beau Doty said. “The first two games this week we saw flashes of what we can be as a basketball team in games against Princeton and La Salle-Peru, then we took a step back on Friday. Today was another step forward, especially with our defense to start the second half.

“Now we have a few days of practice to work on things in preparation for our [Illinois Central Eight] Conference opener against Lisle at home on Friday.”