No. 2 Warriors win 3A Northwest for fourth straight season

WORLAND - For the fourth consecutive season, the Worland Warriors basketball team won the 3A Northwest division.

The No. 2 Warriors clinched the 3A Northwest and a No. 1-seed at the 3A West regionals with road wins over No. 3 Powell, 60-43, on Feb. 10 and Lovell, 54-44, on Feb. 11.

Last week's wins improved Worland to 14-3 on the season.

"The thing that impressed me the most, if you look at the first game against Powell, it was a high-scoring game. Powell shot 64% from the field the first time," said WHS boys basketball coach Aaron Abel. "Last week, we held both Powell and Lovell to 36% shooting. To basically cut in half their offensive efficiency from the first meeting and do it on their home floor was really big for us."

The Warriors also won seven of their eight quarters last week and tied in the other one.

"Defensively, we were really good. It might not have been a fun or pretty game to watch, but for us, we were more in line with how we'd win tough games like that. We won or tied all eight quarters. To do that against two tough opponents is what we want to see. We want to see that consistency of effort, regardless of the scoreboard," said Abel. "We got that all weekend long."

Carter Clark led the Warriors in scoring vs. Powell with 22 points on 6 for 15 shooting and going 8 for 12 from the free-throw line.

Court Gonsalez scored 12 points, Brock Douzenis added 10 points, Kade Weber had seven points, Landen Gilmore had five points, Chase Harris had two points and Tyshon Swalstad two points.

Against Lovell, Weber was the leading scorer with 15 points. Clark had 12 points, Douzenis chipped in 11 points, Gilmore seven points, Gonsalez six points, Swalstad two points and Bryan Caballero one point.

This season the Warriors have prided themselves on being the more physical team, with the overall goal being to wear teams down. While Worland has shot well from 3 the past few weeks, they were unable to rely on the 3-ball last week, but due to their physical play, they wore down Powell and Lovell.

"The four factors we've been focusing on all season in order for us to win were positive for us this weekend. We went on the road to two tough places and shot more free throws than our opponents, and we shot them well. We outrebounded both opponents. We outrebounded Powell 29-23 and Lovell 32-17.

"Those are ways we want to win on nights when we don't shoot the ball well. Especially against Lovell, we didn't shoot well, but that doesn't mean we didn't play well," said Abel. We didn't shoot well in Lovell, and ultimately, it clinched the Northwest for us. Winning that for the fourth year in a row is great for our team. It's probably the toughest of the four quadrants in the state right now, and we'll get a one-seed for regionals."

While they have their seeding at regionals secured, the Warriors plan to keep working and improving. This week's games against Thermopolis, tonight at 7 p.m., and Lander, Saturday at 4 p.m., give them the opportunity to work on the ball-screen defense.

"We want to improve our half-court trap game. We tried it against Lovell, and it wasn't super effective. We want to diversify our defense. We want to get better at dealing with ball screens. Thermopolis likes to set a lot of ball screens, and we want to defend those well and have multiple ways we can defend those. And as always against Thermopolis, we want to rebound well against a team that always seems to rebound well. We'll also work to take away the 3 against them," said Abel.

That's the common thread between Thermopolis and Lander. Lander is a high-ball screen team as well, and they also have multiple players who like to shoot from the perimeter and can do so at a high level. Looking at the weekend, that's what we're working on.