Dixon gets it done down the stretch to defeat Ottawa

DIXON – After an early lead disappeared Wednesday, Dixon made enough plays down the stretch to eke out a victory at Lancaster Gym.

Ottawa rallied from an eight-point deficit to briefly take the lead in the fourth quarter, but the Duchesses hit four free throws and got a couple of key defensive stops late to pull out a 38-35 win.

[ Photos from Ottawa at Dixon girls basketball ]

“Giving up leads and having to make so many big plays at the end isn’t what we want, but if that’s what it’s got to take, we’re happy to get the win,” Dixon’s Hallie Williamson said.

“We knew that we had to step up,” teammate Ahmyrie McGowan said. “We were down on ourselves, and we knew that they were just going to keep coming at us, so we had to get it back.”

Dixon is ranked third in the first AP Class 3A poll of the season after its 7-0 start.

The game came down to the final three minutes as Ottawa’s Mary Stisser hit a 3-pointer to tie the score at 33 with 2:45 to play.

Dixon’s Reese Dambman split a pair of free throws, then Stisser cut to the basket and hit a layup off a pass from Ashlynn Ganiere for a 35-34 lead, the Pirates’ first since 4-2 midway through the first quarter.

But Dambman hit a pair of free throws to give the Duchesses the lead, then they got a stop before running 45 seconds off the clock. McGowan was eventually fouled and made both free throws for a three-point Dixon lead.

“It feels really good to know that we have teammates that help us and encourage us,” Dambman said. “And it’s really good to see when everyone on the team can make huge plays and really help us win.”

Ottawa took a pair of timeouts in the final 25 seconds, then inbounded the ball at its own end of the court with 5.2 seconds to play. But Dixon pressured the guards on the perimeter, and Stisser’s pass toward a teammate in the left corner was tipped away as the Pirates failed to get a shot off as the final buzzer sounded.

“It’s tough, but it’s a huge learning experience,” Stisser said. “One of the best characteristics of our team is how hard we play, and that’s what kept us in the game. We came up short, but any other game could go the other way. We have to be mentally strong, believe in each other and stick to what we know.”

Dixon (8-0) closed the first quarter on a 9-0 run to take a 9-4 lead, then finished the second quarter with a 12-3 surge to lead 22-13 at halftime.

“We knew there was going to be pressure, so we knew we had to handle the ball really well and use our teammates to really key in on our strengths,” Dambman said. “I feel like we just have to see what pressure they’re in and we have to adapt to that. It took us a little bit tonight, but at least we got it going and built that lead.”

“We just told everybody that we needed to calm down and we can’t get stopped by the pressure,” McGowan said. “We had to settle down and stop turning over the ball.”

The Pirates (4-2) tied the score 10-all 2:09 into the second quarter. They cut into the deficit thanks to an aggressive man-to-man pressure defense, which forced the Duchesses to adjust. Ottawa had 15 steals and forced 18 Dixon turnovers in the game.

“The team preaches rebounds and defense on the road, so that’s what we wanted to do tonight,” said Ottawa’s Hailey Larsen, whose 10 boards led a 34-28 rebounding edge for the undersized Pirates. “I have to get the ball, that’s my mindset. I have to get the ball to help my team, and we have to trust our teammates that they’ll help out and be there for you. We just have to trust each other and play as a team.”

The second half started much the same way. Ottawa forced turnovers on Dixon’s first four possessions of the third quarter and finally got some shots to fall from Stisser, Ganiere and Ella Schmitz to get within 22-21 with 3:34 left in the period.

“We had a couple of huge shots that got us going,” Stisser said. “They preach for us to get downhill and kick out to a shooter. We have great shooters all over the floor, so we knew the shots were going to fall, we just had to stick to our principles and wait for the lid to come off the basket.”

Williamson answered with a 3-pointer, then McGowan went coast to coast off a steal before Williamson turned two post entry passes from Morgan Hargrave into layups for a 31-23 lead through three quarters.

A 3 by Schmitz and a runout layup by Larsen cut the Dixon lead to 31-28, then Schmitz answered McGowan’s pull-up jumper with one of her own before Skylar Dorsey kicked out a pass to Stisser for a 3 to tie the score at 33, setting up the nail-biting finish.

“In the first half, we had a bunch of energy, then it slowly died down,” Williamson said. “The more turnovers we had, that made us get down on ourselves. But I think we picked it up toward the end and were able to pull out the win.”

Williamson had 14 points, four rebounds, three blocks and two steals, and Dambman finished with 13 points, four rebounds and four steals for the Duchesses. McGowan stuffed the stat sheet with 11 points, seven rebounds, five steals and three assists; Hargrave chipped in four rebounds and three assists; and Makenzie Toms pulled down five rebounds and blocked a shot.

Larsen added 12 points to her 10 rebounds for a double-double and also nabbed two steals for the Pirates. Stisser finished with 10 points, eight rebounds, five steals and three assists; and Schmitz chipped in eight points, five rebounds, five steals and two assists. Dorsey had three points and three steals, and Ganiere added two points, six rebounds and three assists.

“We were a little bit chaotic and loose with the basketball during their run in the first half, but we weathered the storm enough to where we were still in the game at halftime, and we just talked about collecting our thoughts, getting organized – because when we’re organized, we do good things, and showed that the entire second half,” Ottawa coach Brent Moore said. “Our defensive pressure got us back into the game. We had them back on their heels, and we fought all the way back, it just wasn’t enough.”