Warriors bust out of slump, defeat Panthers 68-41

WORLAND - Coming off a stinging 67-36 loss to No. 1-ranked Buffalo the night before, the Worland Warriors basketball team had to regroup Saturday as they hosted the Powell Panthers. After not cracking the 40-point mark the past two games the Warriors offense came alive as they routed the Panthers 68-41.

The theme of Saturday's victory for Worland (4-7 overall, 1-2 in 3A East: West division) was their defense lifting up their offense. The Warriors forced the Panthers (4-8, 0-3 in 3A East: West division) into turnovers or caused enough deflections to get them out of sync on offense.

With the defense humming, Worland's offense seemed to get going as well by knocking down open perimeter shots all game long.

"I felt like because we started defending harder from the get-go that built our confidence. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but it felt like McCoy Molzahn against Buffalo had zero deflections and was letting his shot impact his defense. Tonight he played defense first, he hit his first shot, then the second and his confidence built from there.

"Jadon [Swalstad] was the same way, he had two deflections against Buffalo and against Powell he was more active defensively and as a result shots started to fall. When you let the defense kick-start everything it helps on the offensive end," said WHS boys basketball coach Aaron Abel.

Early on defensive rebounding was a struggle for the Warriors. They forced a miss or bad shot but could not find a way to grab the board, leading to a timeout by Abel with 5:01 in the first quarter. Coming out of the timeout Worland went on 10-3 run to close out the quarter with a 17-7 lead.

In the second quarter, the Panthers crept a little closer with back-to-back 3-pointers, trimming the Warrior lead to seven at 25-18. Again Abel called a timeout, this time with 2:50 left in the second quarter. Afterward, the Warriors proceeded to go on an 11-0 run to close out the half at 36-18.

From then on the Warriors never looked back as they cruised to their 68-41 victory.

"We're rebounding better out of a zone than we are in man. We don't rebound well at all but at least we have guys under the basket in our zone. We have to figure that out, still. I was really pleased with our press, we were turning them over some without giving up easy layups. We want to create live ball turnovers and turn that into offense. More importantly, we were sprinting ahead of the ball line and not giving up layups, I was happy with that," said Abel.

Not only did the Warriors break out of their offensive slump, senior guard McCoy Molzahn, who had been in a slump of his own, knocked down six 3-pointers to score a team-high 22 points.

The Warriors took a positive step forward Saturday but one area Abel wants his team to improve on is forcing turnover and converting them into points.

"When we play teams like Buffalo and good teams we'll still get some of those opportunities. We were able to turn Buffalo over, the problem is, and we tell our guys, you have to convert every one of those. Otherwise, it was energy without production. A steal without converting, they get the ball back and you still have to get a stop. It doesn't work. There's no point in pressing if you're not going to convert it into points. Our guys did a decent job of that at points tonight but still, that's something we have to get better at," said Abel.

The Warriors travel to Torrington, Friday at 7 p.m., and Wheatland, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Friday's matchup against the Torrington Trailblazers will be to watch as the two teams, if everything stays as it is, will matchup in the first round of the 3A East regional tournament in Douglas on March 1-3.

"The Torrington game is probably our most critical regular season game. If the season ended today that would be our first round opponent at regionals. We need to go into Torrington with the mindset of setting the tone because I'm sure we'll see them down the road when the games really matter," said Abel.

MCCOY MOLZAHN

A win, one of the team's better offensive performances, plus busting out of a slump, Saturday's game came at the right time for senior McCoy Molzahn, who scored a career-high 22 points in the Warrior's victory.

What got Molzahn out of his slump was getting back to the basics of playing hard-nosed defense.

"Just had a conversation with coach about my defense, I've been slacking on defense the last couple games and my offense had been crap. Just before the game, he let me know that I need to work my butt off on defense today [Saturday]. I did that and it was fun, we were running and gunning, I was knocking down shots and my defense fueled my offense tonight.

"It was a great feeling. It's just our defense, that's how our game is played. We're not the best offensive team around and to get points we have to get deflections, runouts and steals," said Molzahn.

With the team tying a season-high of 67 points, Molzahn hopes Saturday's game will be one the team can point to as the turning point.

"This is hopefully the turning point in our season. We have Torrington next week, it's going to be a tough game but with the feel from this one we'll hopefully be able to get another one," said Molzahn.