Worland basketball out to defend state championships

WORLAND-After battling through a tough regular season and 3A East regional tournament, the Worland Warriors and Lady Warriors enter the last leg of their 3A state championship defense today during the quarterfinals of the 3A state tournament.

Both Worland teams are serious title contenders and will be out to make history. If both the Warriors and Lady Warriors repeat, Worland basketball will join an elite class in Wyoming basketball history.

In the current class system only two basketball programs have had both boys and girls teams go back-to-back during the same years. 3A Star Valley High School was the first program to do so taking the titles in 1989 and 1988. While 4A Campbell County High School was the most recent having swept the basketball championships from 1994 to 1997.

LADY WARRIORS

As the No. 1-seed out of the East the Lady Warriors are matched up against the No. 4-seed out of the West, the Cody Fillies.

The last time the Lady Warriors and the Fillies met was on Jan. 6 during the Big Horn Basin Shootout in which the Lady Warriors were victorious by a score of 41-32. Being two months since their last meeting both teams have improved and are not what they were in January. For this reason WHS girls basketball coach Ben Hofmann wants his team to be prepared and ready for Cody's best shot.

"We've watched film, saw some of the mistakes we made and will look to clean those up. We do need to understand that Cody has improved by a significant amount. Every year there seems to be a No. 4-seed that beats a No. 1-seed and we don't want to be that team. So we're going to take the mentality that our backs are against the wall and do our best to beat Cody," said Hofmann.

The Lady Warriors are the No. 1 shooting and No. 2 defensive team in 3A. They're shooting 43 percent from the field and 48 percent from inside the 3-point line. While defensively they have only allowed 38.7 points per game.

During their final three days of practice Lady Warriors used the time to adjust things on their end, while also preparing for other potential opponents.

"It's easy at this point, the dog days of the season, that January and February stretch, are over. Now all we have left are hopefully three games. We're finetuning a few things in practice, making sure we're set on what we want to do," said Hofmann. "We've been watching a little film on a couple of different teams that we haven't seen. Basically we just want to have an idea vs. man, or vs. zone, about what we want to do. Then there are things that other teams like to do so we'll make sure we're aware of those things. That way if we see them we can talk about it pregame and in our walkthroughs."

The Lady Warriors tip off vs. the Fillies tonight at the Casper Events Center at 6 p.m.

WARRIORS

The Warriors used their final three days of practice to work on their ball movement, something that hurt them during their 40-35 loss to Douglas in the 3A East regional championship game.

"We've done some shooting drills that really focused on ball movement. Hopefully that will get everyone to recognize that's when our offense is clicking and when we're at our best," said WHS boys basketball coach Aaron Abel.

As the No. 2-seed out of the East, the Warriors are on the opposite end of the bracket from Douglas and Riverton, who, along with Worland, are among the 3A title contenders.

Riverton had been undefeated up to their 3A West regional championship until Lyman upset the Wolverines 51-50. Riverton's loss threw the state bracket a curveball that not many expected, nonetheless, for Abel and his team the goal is another championship. So at some point they will have to face Riverton or even Douglas to reach that goal.

"You have to beat them some time. I don't think we're going to be happy with anything but a state championship. So we'll have to beat (Riverton or Douglas) at some point. We certainly wanted to win the regional championship because that's something that Worland teams haven't done the last few two years while we've been really good," said Abel.

Opening the 3A state quarterfinals the Warriors face the No. 3-seed out of the West, the Pinedale Wranglers (15-11 overall, 3-3 3A West: South conference).

"Pinedale is a very talented team. They're much more talented than their record shows. They have four very capable scorers and shooters which is always scary. They have three guys that have taken over 75 3-pointers this year and they knock them at a pretty high rate. They have a talented starting five all the way around," said Abel.

Abel added, "They play a 2-3 zone and they do a pretty good job of rotating and taking away the inside. They force you to beat them with perimeter shots. They're a talented team and dangerous team capable of winning a couple of games this weekend."

The Warriors will have to focus on containing Pinedale's Garrett Lozier who is the leading scorer in 3A averaging 21 points per game.

"(Pinedale) is led by the state's leading scorer Garret Lozier who averages 21 per game. He's the real deal. He can score inside and out. He can drive with his left or right. He's a good shooter off the dribble, off the catch or shooting contested 3-pointers. He's a good player and he's going to pose a challenge for us," said Abel.

The Warriors tip off vs. Pinedale at 7:30 p.m. at the Casper Events Center tonight.