Strong start lifts Sparta to ninth straight victory

SPARTA ? A red-hot group of Warriors scored early and often Friday night, and took advantage of 24 turnovers as they handed Warren County?s boys an 88-50 rout to complete a one-sided district sweep.

With the loss, the Pioneers fell to 2-8 on the year and dropped to 0-4 in District 7-AAA play, while White County, which won its ninth straight, improved to 14-3 overall and 2-2 in the league.

Head coach Ryan Smith, whose team hit just 20 of its 47 field-goal attempts ? including 3-of-9 from 3-point range ? was disappointed with the mistakes made by his squad, which fell behind 16-2 early as the Warriors nailed four 3-pointers and brought the crowd to its feet with an alley-oop dunk by J.J. Taylor.

?(The Warriors) make you pay for your mistakes,? he said. ?They have enough shooters to do that, and any time you give the ball that many times to a team that can shoot well, the game?s not going to go well.

?I was really disappointed in our effort. It didn?t seem like we were very hungry, and we?re going to have to go back and look at this game, and see what we have to change.?

Taylor finished with 13 points, while Josh Brown had a dozen, all coming on shots from behind the arc. But when the perimeter shooters were covered, the Warriors simply looked inside, where Jacob Duke was there to post a team-high 17 points while his backup, Aaron Puckett, added 10. White County hit seven of its 11 3-point tries on the way to the win, connecting on 42 of its 63 shot attempts and hitting 7-of-10 from the free-throw line.

Ahead by a 26-10 margin through a quarter, the Warriors out-scored the Pioneers 11-2 to start the second, and led by as many as 26 points in the first half before a late Pioneer surge trimmed the gap to 20 (43-23) at intermission.

A nine-point run by the Warriors ? including a steal and dunk by Taylor ? opened the second half, and Warren County trailed by a 73-38 gap by the end of the third as Sparta coasted to the victory.

Chris Weitzel led Warren County with a 14-point night, while Donta Weir, Ryan Daniel and Derek Mikkola added six each.

The Pioneers play host to Blackman Tuesday night, and travel to Lebanon for another district contest on Friday before going to Tullahoma Saturday for a non-district game.