MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Ooltewah was blindsided by a trap.
Memphis Central threw an unexpected defense at the Owls, who like to play basketball like a thoroughbred roaring around the final turn in the Kentucky Derby, were forced to play slow during Wednesday’s Class AAA boys state tournament game at Middle Tennessee State University.
The Region 8 champion Warriors played methodical, shot 50 percent from the field and ended Ooltewah’s season with a 67-54 victory, spoiling the Owls’ first state tourney appearance in 32 years.
“It’s not the way I wanted to end it,” said senior Jervon Johnson, who capped his prep career with 1,641 points and 323 made 3-pointers.
“But we had a great season.”
Central (19-9) advanced to Friday’s semifinals and will play Clarksville (26-11) in a 1:30 ET game in Murphy Center. Clarksville beat Cherokee, 53-47, just before the Owls and Warriors took the court.
Earlier in the day, Chattanooga Howard was defeated by Liberty Technology, 62-52, in Class AA action for the third straight time in the tournament.
Chattanooga’s only team left, Grace Baptist Academy (19-10), will play Friendship Christian (25-3) at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday.
Johnson led the Owls (27-5) with 15 points on 4-of-15 shooting, including 3-of-13 from 3-point distance. Sophomore Ben Snider had 14 points and senior Andre Moton added 11.
The Owls live and die with pressure defense and transition buckets, but the Warriors squashed their running attack all night long, forcing them to play mostly a half-court game and to launch shots primarily from the perimeter.
Not many of them found their mark.
Ooltewah was 19-of-54 (35.2 percent) from the field and a horrific 4-of-27 from behind the arc. The Owls’ four main long-distance gunners – Johnson, Antonio Jackson, Moton and Jacqueze Robinson – took and made all of the team’s 3s. Robinson went 0-for-7 and Jackson 0-for-6. Moton made the only 3 he attempted.
Their game stymied, the Owls simply couldn’t find an up-tempo rhythm against Central.
“That was very frustrating,” said Johnson, who fouled out of his final high school game, “because that’s the way we play. That’s the way we win. Really, we had to play better defense and get them in a running game, and we didn’t do that.”
Wednesday marked just the seventh time in 32 games the Owls scored fewer than 60 points.
“We watched film on them and we weren’t expecting the half-court trap they came out with,” Jackson said. “We had to make some adjustments at the last moment. It was tough out there.”
Central coach Andre Applewhite, whose son, Andre, led the Warriors with 23 points, knew he had to devise a defense that would keep the Owls at bay, and he did.
“We put in a 2-2-1 press to slow them down,” the coach said. “They play off rhythm and we wanted to keep them out of that rhythm.”
After a while, the Owls were not only out of sync, but flustered and falling farther and farther behind.
Ooltewah coach Jesse Nayadley, who directed the Owls to their first-ever Class AAA state tournament (Ed Foster’s squad played in the 1980 Class AA state tourney), pointed to a stretch late in the second quarter that sent the Owls reeling.
The Owls tied the game at 24-24 on a Snider free throw with 2:55 left in the quarter. Johnson had pulled Ooltewah close with a 3 from the left wing and a driving layup off a steal with just under five minutes on the clock.
“I feel like we lost the game in the last two minutes of the second quarter,” Nayadley said. “They went on a 9-0 run and I’ve got Mikhail sitting over there on the bench in foul trouble. We just never made up that run.”
Central, which has won six in a row since losing the District 16-AAA title game to White Station, built a 43-33 third-quarter lead and went to a spread offense to keep the game at an even slower pace. The Warriors were up, 47-35, heading into the fourth quarter.
The foundation of Central’s lead throughout the game was built on physical play, and Nayadley voiced concern about that long before the game started.
Then, again after the hopes for a state title had evaported.
“It was a very physical game and they’re built better for physicality than we were,” he said. “They had big bodies everywhere and us getting in foul trouble hurt.”
In addition to Johnson, Moton and Creech fouled out as well.
Nayadley said he kept waiting for his team to make a patented quick-strike run to get the advantage over Central.
“It didn’t happen,” he said. “I had the feeling of it five or six times, but every time we touched number 3 (Applewhite) it was a foul. Momentum or the way the ball bounced, whatever you want to call it, we just couldn’t get a break. A lot of that’s to their credit.”
Johnson, the District 5-AAA Player of the Year, converted two free throws and Moton drove the lane for a layup as the Owls quickly cut the deficit to 47-39 to start the fourth quarter.
Was that the start of a run Nayadley had been waiting to see?
No.
Central’s Myron Johnson, who scored 16 points, drilled a 3 to frustrate the Owls again. That was Central’s last field goal until Johnson made a layup to give the Warriors a 65-49 lead with 2:21 left in the game, but over the final 6 minutes and 42 seconds the Warriors made 11-of-19 free throws to keep the Owls under their thumb.
For the game, Central made 16 of 29 free throws.
“This is a good feeling,” the younger Applewhite said. “We’re going to cherish it a little bit.”
D’airrius Sorrell scored 12 points and Joshua Jones had 11 for the Warriors.
BOXSCORE
Memphis Central 67, Ooltewah 54
Memphis Central (19-9)
Andre Applewhite 9-15 5-9 23, Myron Johnson 5-14 3-5 16, Joshua Jones 4-7 3-5 11, D’airrius Sorrell 3-4 4-4 12, Frank Herron 2-2 1-2 5, Taj Cain 0-1 0-0 0, Markus Buchanon 0-0 0-2 0, Jeremy Buffington 0-0 0-0 0, Gilbert West 0-1 0-0 0, Deddrick Thomas 0-0 0-0 0, Taurus Currie 0-0 0-0 0. Total: 23 46 16-29 67.
Ooltewah (27-5)
Antonio Jackson 1-9 0-0 2, Mikhail Creech 3-5 1-2 7, Andre Moton 5-8 0-1 11, Ben Snider 5-8 4-6 14, Jervon Johnson 4-15 4-4 15, Jacqueze Robinson 1-9 2-6 4, Andrew Ware 0-0 1-2 1, Ty Pressly 0-0 0-0 0. Total: 19-54 12-21 54.
Memphis Central 19 14 14 20 – 67
Ooltewah 13 12 10 19 – 54
3-point goals: Memphis Central 5-8 (Johnson 3-5, Jones 0-1, Sorrell 2-2); Ooltewah 4-27 (Jackson 0-6, Moton 1-1, Johnson 3-13, Robinson 0-7).
Fouled out: Memphis Central – None; Ooltewah – Creech, Moton, Johnson.
Rebounds: Memphis Central 37 (Jones 8); Ooltewah 35 (Snider 9).
Assists: Memphis Central 8 (Applewhite 4); Ooltewah 6 (Jackson 2, Robinson 2).
Total fouls: Memphis Central 20; Ooltewah 23.
Technical fouls: Memphis Central – None; Ooltewah – None.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at fleminglrry@aol.com)