East Hamilton's Cam Montgomery shoots over Ooltewah's Logan Henry on Tuesday during their District 5-3A basketball game at Ooltewah. Montgomery scored a game-high 22 points and the Hurricanes won their first District 5-3A regular-season championship.
photo by Dennis Norwood
East Hamilton made a bit of basketball history Tuesday night against Ooltewah.
Coach Frank Jones’ Hurricanes used a 9-0 run to close the third quarter and went on to beat the Owls, 66-52, to win their first District 5-3A regular-season champion in the program’s 10-year history.
“It’s really big because it’s the first time we’ve done that,” said senior guard Cam Montgomery, who led all scorers with 22 points – getting 11 in each half.
“The regular season is over and we’ve still got to prove ourselves in the tournament. That’s a different story.”
The Hurricanes (19-5, 11-1) will go into the tournament as the No. 1 seed, thanks to the regular-season title. They swept every opponent during the season except for Cleveland. The Canes and Blue Raiders split their two games. The Canes won at home, 63-49, and the Blue Raiders returned the favor at Raider Arena, 60-40.
Cleveland has been on a tear lately, winning 14 straight games. The Blue Raiders (22-4, 9-2) finish out the regular season at Bradley Central on Monday in a game that was postponed by weather last month.
Senior Jamaal Walker, who scored 15 points, including four in the pivotal 9-0 spurt, thought the team could win a title when he transferred in from Baylor.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m a winner and I’m always thinking about winning. I looked at other schools, but I knew East Hamilton was a good fit because of the academics and the people I already knew here. That made choosing a lot easier. Plus, they’ve been winning.”
East Hamilton finished 9-3 in the District in each of the previous two seasons and were a combined 50-19 overall. The Hurricanes lost in the 2017-18 sectional and reached the state in 2016-17 where they lost in the first round to eventual champion Memphis East.
Jones took over this season after the previous coach was forced to resign and hasn’t missed a beat. Jones, who had an extremely successful playing career at old Riverside High School that included a state title in 1972 led the Hurricanes to their first double-digit winning season in district play.
“The guys have fought hard all season,” Jones said. “We’ve had some ups and downs, but they put in a lot of hard work and deserve this championship. We’ve tried to develop and all-around game and I’m proud of the situation we’re in right now. This is a great achievement for these players.”
The Owls (14-13, 6-6) fell to fifth place in the district standings following the loss and coupled with Walker Valley’s 63-57 win over Bradley on Tuesday.
Ooltewah played like a much higher seed on Jan. 11, pushing East Hamilton to the limit. Sophomore Darwin Randolph’s tip-in with seven seconds left provided the winning bucket.
“We played without one of our starters (Marcus Long) in the earlier game,” Jones said. “He doesn’t score a lot of points, but he does a lot of things in different categories. When you have a main player out of the lineup, it throws off the rhythm you’ve had. We were out of sync in the first game with Ooltewah.”
Midway through the third period Tuesday, a Montgomery 3-pointer pushed East Hamilton’s lead to 39-30. The Owls responded with six straight points.
The Canes had an answer in the form of nine consecutive points.
Kyler Johnson started the scoring burst with two free throws.
Schramm drove hard to the rim and was fouled. He made one free throw.
Walker followed with a floater and a layup.
As the final seconds of the quarter ticked off, Johnson’s shot was off the mark, but he got his own rebound and made a layup at the final buzzer. That pushed East Hamilton’s lead to 48-36.
Ooltewah’s Julien Walker made a free throw to start the fourth period.
Montgomery managed to beat fast-closing Jax Howard for a layup and added another bucket 17 seconds later.
After a misfire at the Owls’ end of the court, Montgomery took an outlet pass and headed for the Canes’ bucket. Just in the front of the free-throw line Montgomery glanced behind him, saw Schramm racing toward the goal, bounced a pass off the backboard and Schramm completed the crowd-pleasing play with a dunk.
It brought the house down and East Hamilton’s lead went to 54-37 barely two minutes into the final quarter.
“I had struggled in the first half, but finally calmed down and that dunk was an exciting moment for me,” he said. “That’s the first time I think we’ve done that in a game. We’ve done it in practice and I’ve been telling them to do it in a game, but they just blew it off. Tonight, it was the right time to do it.”
Montgomery said his glance back was the indicator that it was a go.
“That sets up the play,” he said. “It was great and pumped up everybody in the gym. It was a real emphatic dunk.”
Well, everybody except the Owls’ fans.
A few minutes later, East Hamilton, which has beaten Ooltewah nine straight times and leads the series, 9-6, pushed its lead to 58-38 on Darwin Randolph’s field goal. The spread was 60-40 with 3:02 remaining.
“We had high expectations when the season started,” Jones said. “We’re slowly getting to the point we need to be, but we still have some growing to do. I’m really happy for Cam and Jamaal because they’re seniors. It’s great they’ve had this opportunity to enjoy a situation like this. They’ve been great for us all season.”
East Hamilton girls 54, Ooltewah 34: The Lady Hurricanes (17-10, 8-4), who already had the No. 3 seed for the district tournament locked up, found themselves trailing the fast-starting Lady Owls (10-15, 3-9) by nine points six minutes into the game.
East Hamilton then flipped on its offensive switch and left Ooltewah in the dust.
The Lady Hurricanes scored 16 straight points and went ahead 21-14 and never looked back.
Ooltewah’s McKenzie Patterson’s layup stopped the Lady Canes’ impressive run. East Hamilton eventually scored 25 of 27 points and had a 30-16 advantage before the second quarter ended.
Ooltewah was held to one point in the third quarter and was on the short end of a 45-19 score after three periods of play. East Hamilton outscored their rivals, 35-5, in the second and third quarters.
In fact, Ooltewah managed just 20 points over the final 18 minutes of the game. Thirteen came in the last 4 minutes, 42 seconds with mostly reserves on the court.
Madison Hayes poured in 25 points – 14 in the first half – to lead East Hamilton to its eighth consecutive win over the Lady Owls and leads the overall series, 12-2.
Madalyn Mills led Ooltewah with 16 points, 10 coming in the first quarter.
Scoring Summaries
Girls Game
East Hamilton 10 20 15 9 – 54
Ooltewah 14 4 1 15 – 34
East Hamilton (54) – Patton 4, Evans 2, Seder, Copeland 6, Madison Hayes 25, Mc. Hayes 7, Johnson, Petitt 4, Sue, Laboo 6.
Ooltewah (34) – O’Donnell 5, Thompson 2, Ippamaguire, Tharp, Wardlaw 4, Brown, Daniels 2, Sutton, Turman, Madalyn Mills 16, Patterson 3, Hilliard 2.
3-Point Goals – East Hamilton 3 (Copeland 2, Mc. Hayes 1), Ooltewah 1 (O’Donnell 1).
Boys Game
East Hamilton 10 17 21 18 – 66
Ooltewah 10 11 15 16 – 52
East Hamilton (66) – Jamaal Walker 15, Cam Montgomery 22, Morrell Schramm 10, D. Randolph 2, Long 5, Rogers, Eller, Jenkins 2, Johnson 4, Shropshire, Crawford 2, Pendleton, S. Randolph 4.
Ooltewah (52) – Greyson Wood 14, Petty, Smith 8, Howard 2, Houston 1, Henry 2, Haynes 2, Sims, Tarel McClurkin 13, Williams, Julien Walker 10.
3-Point Goals – East Hamilton 4 (Walker 1, Montgomery 1, Schramm 1, Long 1), Ooltewah 4 (McClurkin 3, Wood 1).
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)
Jamaal Walker of East Hamilton puts up a left-handed layup Tuesday night in the Hurricanes' 66-52 win against rival Ooltewah. Walker finished with 15 points as the team improved closed with an 11-1 record in District 5-3A, good enough to win the regular-season title.
photo by Dennis Norwood