No. 3 Warriors split Friday games after frustrating loss to Rocky Mountain

WORLAND - In what felt like a repeat of Thursday night's loss to Green River, the Worland Warriors struggled with in-game adversity against the Rocky Mountain Grizzlies. Hosting the Pinnacle Bank Big Horn Basin Classic boys basketball tournament, the Warriors cruised to a 67-24 win over 2A Shoshoni but during the final game of the night on Friday at Worland High School, fell to the 2A Grizzlies 60-57.

"It was a very frustrating game, our defense is what bothered me," said WHS boys basketball coach Aaron Abel. "In the third quarter, all we needed was a stop. We could have gotten it at any time and we just couldn't get it. I think they scored seven possessions in a row, we just didn't show any toughness there.

"I was happy that we fought back in the last three minutes but we just made their season. They came into our place and beat us with four sophomores starting. They were just a lot tougher team than us [Friday]."

Against Rocky, the Warriors jumped out to a 10-1 lead in the first quarter for their largest lead of the night, but the Grizzlies ended the quarter on a 14-3 run to take the lead at 15-13. From then on, neither team could gain much separation. Rocky Mountain did expand their lead to 10 points late in the fourth quarter but the Warriors stormed back to make it a one-possession game when junior Luke Mortimer stole the ball and went in for an easier layup to cut the Rocky lead to one, at 58-57.

Defensively, the Warriors struggled to find consistency and string together stops. It's an area that the Warriors will have to clean up if they want to make a deep run come March.

"We're just losing guys, we're losing our fundamentals. We don't have eyes on man and ball, we're letting drives get too deep in the paint and when the ball comes back out they have a wide-open three," said Abel. "We give up a loose ball or offensive rebound and the ball comes out for another wide open three. I'm just tired of saying it, our guys have to do it."

Added Abel, "We have defense non-negotiables, if you give up a baseline drive you sit down. And we saw that a little bit tonight if you give up a straight-line drive you just have to sit down. We just can't do those types of things. We also missed a ton of layups tonight, I bet we left 40 points on the floor on layups. I've never seen us miss so badly from the inside. That's part of our toughness or lack of."

With the loss, the Warriors play 3A West division rival, the Powell Panthers at 12:30 p.m. at Worland High School. The Warriors/Panthers game won't count toward either team's division record. "We need to practice and get in the gym to work through some things. We'll get through this Powell game and hopefully, Monday's and Tuesday's practice will be great," said Abel.

PINNACLE BANK BIG HORN BASIN CLASSIC SCOREBOARD

WORLAND SIDE

WY Indian 73, Burlington 54

Worland 67, Shoshoni 24

WY Indian 72, Powell 52

Rocky Mtn. 69, Shoshoni 39

Powell 71, Burlington 43

Rocky Mtn. 60, Worland 57

THERMOPOLIS SIDE

Greybull 78, Ten Sleep 35

Thermopolis 49, Riverside 22

Wind River 77, Ten Sleep 21

Lovell 55, Riverside 17

Wind River 60, Greybull 53

Lovell 42, Thermopolis 31