Ottawa girls boast experience, hope to be tough team to beat

The Ottawa girls basketball team has all the pieces — experience and potential, along with solid ball-handlers, shooters and a team-built defensive mindset — that could make for an exciting and winning season.

“I like to do quotes for the team, and the quote I started them all out with at the first practice was, ‘It looks like we should win, and we want to win, but we need to expect to win,’ ” said Ottawa’s seventh-year head coach Brent Moore. “It’s not to put pressure on them, but we have all the ingredients to win a lot of games.

“Winners expect to win, and hopefully they believe in themselves like I do that we can be a very tough team to beat this season.”

Ottawa, which finished 9-6 overall and 7-5 in Interstate Eight Conference action in the spring season, opens its 2021-22 campaign Nov. 15 against Indian Creek at the Illinois Math and Science Academy McIntosh Classic. The Pirates will begin league play on the road at Morris Dec. 4.

“I think early the biggest thing will be conditioning, and a lot of our practice drills incorporate conditioning in them, so I feel we’ll be all right come our first game,” said Moore.

Ottawa returns four starters — all seniors — in point guard Gabi Krueger, No. 2 guard Ella Marvel (6.5 ppg, 3.1 apg, 2.0 spg, I-8 Honorable Mention, Times All-Area Third Team), forward Zoe Harris (7.0 ppg, 4.9 rpg, Times All-Area Honorable Mention) and sharp-shooting guard Brooke Waddell (10 ppg, 3.1 rpg, I-8 First Team, Times All-Area Second Team),

“For our four senior starters, and other seniors Molly Buscher (G) and Madison Lineback (C), the first week of practices was just like hopping back on a bicycle,” said Moore. “They have everything down in terms of what we want to do on both ends of the floor. They are hungry to get going and need a game. But you look at the rest of the group, some of them got some minutes last spring, but the newcomers will need to learn all of that, and it will take some time. With all that being said, we won’t be changing a whole bunch. We do what we do, but we are adding some things and adding to what we already do this year, and we’ve tried to keep a good balance to everything we are working on.

“In those six seniors, I’m looking to them to lead, and they will. They are all outstanding in the things they can do and the roles they play. I feel like they all are going to have great a final season in a Pirate uniform for us.”

Moore said sophomore post Cheyenne Joachim with be the fifth starter. Joachim saw minutes last season as a freshman, but will take on a much bigger role this year.

“Cheyenne is going to be a big part of what we do,” said Moore. “We want to get her touches inside, to either finish at the rim or to open up opportunities for the other four players on the floor. She’s a very good rebounder, the best on the team, and she has a chance to be the best rebounder in our conference. She will also be our anchor in the paint defensively and be a player like the bigs we’ve had in the past, like a Sloan Gayan, Regan O’Fallon or Julia Long. They were high-IQ players that understood how to disrupt teams down low.”

The Pirates also will return junior guard Grace Carroll, who Moore says is “a smart, skilled all-around player that will have her role go up, be the first one off the bench, be the spark and another very good ball-handler.”

Rounding out the roster will be juniors Morgan Stone, Brynne Sember, Michaela Froisland and Gianna Leigh; sophomore Kendall Lowery, who missed spring season with a knee injury; and freshman Marlie Orlandi.

“I’m excited to see what this group can do,” said Moore. “It should be a fun team to watch.”