OTTAWA — Crunch-time turnovers reared their ugly head once again for the Rochelle Hub varsity basketball team during Friday evening’s Interstate 8 Conference battle against the Ottawa Pirates.

With a chance to potentially clinch the outright conference championship, Rochelle held a slight lead over Ottawa with only a few minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. But a series of turnovers allowed the Pirates to extend the game into overtime, where Ottawa finished strong to hand the Hubs a 66-60 loss.

“I thought Ottawa shot the ball really well, but we still had our opportunities,” head coach Tim Thompson said. “We committed about five straight turnovers down the stretch and when we looked back at our previous games, we had four games where we thought we had opportunities to win, but we committed too many second and fourth-quarter turnovers. That’s where we’re having difficulties right now.”

Senior standouts Braiden Miller and Luke Cushing led the charge for the Pirates, who drew 23 fouls from the Hubs (16-10, 9-3 Interstate 8) during the game and converted 24 free throws to only eight on the Rochelle side. The Hubs held a 13-10 lead after the first quarter, but the Pirates took control in the second quarter, leaning on Miller and Cushing, who combined for 42 points with Miller totaling 20 points and 12 rebounds.

“It was a difficult game for us because they took away a lot of things we like to do and one of those things is getting in transition,” Thompson said. “They made a lot of shots and they drew a lot of fouls to get to the free-throw line. They also shaded somebody on Ryan [Simmons] when he brought the ball up the floor so we weren’t able to get him going downhill. The game went slower than it normally would.”

Trailing 30-23 at the half, Rochelle picked up the pace and played tough man-to-man defense in the third quarter, outscoring Ottawa 17-8 and regaining the lead entering the fourth quarter. Senior Adam Kemp tied the game in the final seconds for the Hubs, stealing an inbounds pass and scoring to make it 53-53 before Cushing airmailed a 3-pointer after an Ottawa timeout with only a few seconds left on the clock.

“I thought there were some positives from our kids,” Thompson said. “We were able to compete in a game that normally isn’t our type of game. We able to get shots up and we battled despite having players in foul trouble. These next couple of weeks are going to be dedicated to working on half-court offense when our transition game isn’t there. I didn’t think our spacing was very good against Ottawa and I didn’t think we shot the ball very well. We also need to work on our post entries and avoiding ball pressure.”

The Pirates closed out the win with a 13-7 run during the overtime period. Senior Ryan Simmons led the Hubs with 14 points, six assists and four rebounds, while Kemp totaled 13 points, two steals and five rebounds. Senior Noah Brown added 12 points on four 3-pointers made along with two steals in the game.