For the first three quarters Arts & Sciences did exactly what a veteran basketball team should do against an outmanned group of freshmen, building a 20-point lead. But whether it was a letdown by the Patriots or simply Ooltewah's Owls being too young to realize their fate had been sealed, the game finished in dramatic fashion with CSAS holding on for a 68-66 win on the first night of the prep hoops season.
An unhappy Patriots coach Mark Dragoo held a succinct postgame discussion with his team, which he ended with the demand, "I'll see you all at 7 a.m."
"We're going to work on defensive pressure and closing people out," Dragoo said afterward. "You don't lose a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter unless you just quit playing, and that's what happened.
"We had the experience and the depth advantages, so that shouldn't have happened at the end. We have a lot of talent and can be a very good team, but they got their comeuppance at the end and we'll work to fix it."
With eight players absent because they're involved with the Owls football team that's still alive in the state playoffs, and three others out with injury, Ooltewah played with four freshmen for much of the game.
The Patriots, on the other hand, have four starters back from a 24-win team that fell one game shy of reaching the Class A state tournament last season. They used that experience and talent to pull away late in the first half, then add to their lead in the third quarter.
The Patriots missed their first five shots before Ooltewah even got one off and committed four offensive fouls in the first quarter, but they eventually settled down offensively to take the lead for good on Jordan House's layup with 6:51 to go in the second quarter, a play that sparked a 7-0 scoring run.
After the Owls cut the difference to four midway through the second quarter, CSAS scored the next nine points to extend its lead to 13 and maintained a double-digit advantage into the fourth quarter, when the lead stretched to 20 points.
CSAS carried a 16-point lead into the fourth quarter, but that's when Ooltewah began to force turnovers and execute those into quick baskets to trim the deficit. The Owls got within six with 41 seconds remaining, but CSAS countered with a pair of free throws from Darius Graves to push the lead back to eight. Ooltewah then hit two 3-pointers in an 11-second span, pulling within two, but the Patriots were able to run out the clock and hang on.
"Those guys fought to the end," Ooltewah coach Tank Montgomery said. "I'll take that all night, every night. Just give me that kind of effort and we'll be all right. We'll be fine when we get everybody back out, but to have four freshmen playing in this environment against a quality team, that experience will pay off for us."
Senior Shunn Moorer led CSAS with 14 points, Miquel Hamilton had 13 and Graves added 11. Ooltewah was led by Cameron Montgomery's game-high 20, including three 3s, and Jordan Rawls added 17, including a pair of late 3s.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.