Despite playing on a blue floor nicknamed “Lego-Land,” the Middle Tennessee Heat weren’t playing around when the Warren County Pioneers visited on Tuesday night.The home-schooled team based out of Hermitage scored six points in the final minute to upset the Pioneers 44-41.Warren County (12-8) had won five straight games going into Tuesday and had defeated the Heat earlier in the season 58-51 at Charlie Dalton Gym.After passing road tests in back-to-back games at Cannon County and Coffee County last week, Pioneer coach Malcolm Montgomery thought his team suffered a setback on Tuesday.“We’ve had growing pains in trying to become a championship team,” said Montgomery. “We’ve got to take care of things early in games and continue to learn and get better.”The downfall for the Pioneers were turnovers as the team gave the ball over to the Heat 25 times, including two big turnovers in the final minute.Warren County led 41-38 with a minute to go, but couldn’t get the stops down the stretch to extend its winning streak to six.The Pioneers put all their focus on August Schaetz, who had scored 27 points, in the final minute. Warren County forced other Heat players to step up and they did.The Pioneers forced a missed shot from the Heat, but in the scramble for the rebound Warren County was called for a foul and the Heat got two shots from the free-throw line.Both freebies went in, cutting the Pioneer lead to 41-40.
Warren County loses to Middle Tennessee Heat