Ottawa ? The Ottawa High girls basketball team didn’t know whether to salivate or be scared after seeing the size of Kansas City Piper’s squad.

Six of Piper’s players stand taller than 5-foot-10, creating a serious size mismatch for the Cyclones.

However, the disadvantage turned into a huge advantage. It allowed Ottawa to run circles around the Pirates in a 70-30 OHS victory on Friday.

The transition game is nothing new to Ottawa, and coach Cliff McCullough will certainly welcome it again this season.

“We’ve lived on that for the last couple of years,” McCullough said. “We’ve got a whole new team and a lot of new faces. It’s nice to see we can still do that.”

Too often, the Cyclones got easy buckets on the fast break. Perhaps no one reaped the benefits of the transition game more than senior Liz Burks, who scored 18 points, many of them uncontested.

“She makes things happen when she does that,” McCullough said. “People fall into place and follow suit : that’s what you need out of your point guard.”

As for the six tall ones on Piper? They score just 19 points combined, and two fouled out.

“We’re not very tall,” Burks said, “but I think everybody did a good job of playing bigger than they are. We boxed out well.”

For a relatively new Ottawa squad, the effectiveness on the court Friday let McCullough sigh in relief.

“I told these girls we have a lot of tools here,” McCullough said. “I just didn’t know how it was going to come together.”

He paused and smiled.

“I think it came together pretty well tonight.”

Ottawa 70, KC Piper 30

Piper 6 3 13 8 -30

Ottawa 20 18 18 14 -70

KC Piper (0-1) :quot;-Amy Holander 2, Amanda Woolley 3, Katie Kaminski 2, Ashley Boczek 3, Allison Kaminski 2, Allison Brown 1, Ashley Sanders 7, Kathy Kiblinger 5, Melissa Green 5.

Ottawa (1-0) – Liz Burks 18, Jenna Allegre 4, Jenny Heck 4, Jara Vance 8, Laura O’Connor 1, Amanda Guenther 0, Tori Reeves 3, Caitlin Smith 0, Rae Ann Tharp 8, Allie Daniels 7, Megan Ramsey 15, Kelsie Studley 2.