Ooltewah’s Abel Anachanattu scored a game-high 21 points, all in the second half, and led the Owls to a 66-49, high school basketball victory over visiting Sequoyah on Tuesday night.
Anachanattu, a senior who played with the junior varsity team last season, made five 3-pointers after halftime as the Owls (1-2) outscored Sequoyah, 44-23.
Jared Boyd scored 16 points and Edward Hayes, a football standout who had just one practice with the basketball Owls, added 12 points.
“Abel shoots the ball pretty good,” Montgomery said.
“I always let my guys shoot the 3 when they’re open and he can put two or three together if he makes after he makes the first one. He’s worked himself into a pretty good ballplayer.”
For the first two games of the season, coach Andre Montgomery was without nine players who were still with the football team in the Class 5A playoffs. Ooltewah lost to Rhea County on Friday to end its season.
“I told the football guys they could take a week off, but some of them got in a practice (Monday),” Montgomery said. “They got their legs in the second half and our defense picked up. I had to play zone the first two games because I didn’t have the numbers to play man-to-man.”
Cody Hampton paced Sequoyah with 15 points and Seth Shaffer had 10.
Sequoyah 10 16 9 14 – 49
Ooltewah 10 12 19 25 – 66
Sequoyah (49) – Harmon 2, Phillips 7, Strickland 8, Russell 5, Cody Hampton 15, Smith 1, Moore 1, Seth Shaffer 10.
Ooltewah (66) – Edward Hayes 12, Jared Boyd 16, Williams 3, Abel Anachanattu 21, Kendricks 2, Jones7, McCauley 3, Williams-Moore 2.
3-Point Goals: Sequoyah 6 (Hampton 3, Phillips, Russell, Shaffer 1); Ooltewah 7 (Anachanattu 5, Hayes 2).
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)