Mt. Juliet's boys basketball team reaches region championship hours after Wilson County hit by tornado

The day started with unknown for the Mt. Juliet boys basketball program.

Coach Troy Allen didn't know if he could exit the Mt. Juliet subdivision he lives in after an early Tuesday morning tornado destroyed parts of East Nashville, Donelson as well as parts of Wilson and Putnam County.

At least 24 people died in the tornadoes.

His team was safe; the tornado had missed their homes. But they had friends affected by it.

Allen didn't know if his Bears would play a high school basketball region semifinal game Tuesday, or if it needed to.

But they decided to play. Mt. Juliet beat Clarksville 70-39 in a Region 5-AAA semifinal at Springfield.

"Our kids wanted to play this game despite what's happened," Allen said. "I think they just wanted to play it for the Mt. Juliet community, for their friends and their friends' families. 

"It's been a real difficult day for everyone involved."

West Wilson Elementary School in Wilson County was damaged by the tornado.

Once Allen found a way out of his subdivision, he said he chose not to travel around Mt. Juliet to look at the damage. He didn't want to.

"I don't want to see that," Allen said. "That's too much, and I wanted to stay out of the way of the emergency workers and those who are helping clean up."

Allen and Clarksville coach Ted Young talked about the possibility of postponing their region semifinal game until Wednesday and allow the second semifinal between Clarksville Northeast and Station Camp to be played.

"I talked with my guys and they wanted to play," Allen said. "We wanted to honor the people that were affected and make them proud. 

"The other region tournament coaches were good with whatever we decided, so we played."

Three Nashville-area region tournaments were postponed. Metro Nashville athletic director Roosevelt Sanders said a decision was made to postpone the Region 5-AA tournament at Maplewood and Region 6-AAA tournament at Overton by one day. Boys semifinals will be played on Wednesday.

The Region 4-AA tournament in Cookeville was also pushed back a day. The boys semifinals will be played Wednesday at Watertown and the girls championship will be played Thursday at Tennessee Tech.

Upperman girls coach Dana McWilliams said both the school's boys and girls programs had players directly affected by the tornadoes. Two members of the girls team had homes severely damaged or destroyed. And one member of the boys team had his home severely damaged

Oakland boys basketball coach Troy Bond woke up around 1 a.m. Tuesday when sirens went off near his home in Lebanon.

"We took cover in our basement," Bond said. "You could hear the wind, it sounded like a train.

"We were lucky to be on the outside (of it). But man, it was scary. We're blessed, absolutely. It's devastating how it hit Lebanon and Mt. Juliet even harder, and Putnam County. You don't think of anything like this happening in March."

Reach Tom Kreager at 615-259-8089 or tkreager@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Kreager.