Warriors back on top as 3A champions

If you had to surmise the Worland Warriors 2023 basketball season in one word, it would be resiliency. The Warriors resiliency guided them through a revenge tour of sorts and on their way to winning the 3A State championship for the second time in three seasons.

With their 37-35 win over the Lyman Eagles in the 3A State championship game on March 11 at the Ford Wyoming Center in Casper, the Warriors capped their incredible 23-3 season by bringing home the program's fifth state championship.

"We've been playing together forever, and it's kind of an emotional one," said Warrior senior guard Court Gonsalez after Worland downed Lyman. "This was our dream since we were little, and it's our chemistry and friendship that brought us together, and we fought through everything."

Getting to the championship game, the Warriors started with a 72-32 quarterfinal win over the Torrington Trailblazers on March 9 at the Ford Wyoming Center and in the semifinals at Natrona High School, defeated the Buffalo Bison 55-48 on March 10.

All postseason long, even as the games got tougher and the premium on each possession rose, the Warriors did whatever it took to put another in the win column.

"Looking back on the six postseason games, we were behind or tied at halftime in four out of the six games," said WHS boys basketball coach Aaron Abel. "The guys just found different ways to win. That was the key all through the last two weeks. My buddy Curtis asked me why the championship game was so low scoring.

"In Wyoming, teams know you so well. They know your strengths and weaknesses. They know your personnel. They know all your set plays you want to run and what you're trying to do, and it makes it really hard in the postseason to do anything that the other teams are not ready for, we're calling our sets out, and Lyman's echoing it. They'll say a double screen is coming here. They're pointing where we're trying to get the ball or what we're trying to do. It creates an added layer of gamesmanship."

Having beaten the Eagles, who made the championship game by beating No. 1 Douglas 48-47 in the semifinals, twice this season, the Warriors knew the third matchup would be more challenging.

That challenge was made known early as the Eagles jumped out to a 7-2 lead and would eventually hold a 17-7 lead midway through the second quarter.

Lyman's defense packed the paint and had Bradyon Bradshaw roaming there to protect the rim. The Warriors were unable to get to the rim as a result. But with Lyman sagging off defensively, it opened things up on the perimeter for the Warriors.

Trailing by 10, Worland closed the gap as they went on a 3-point barrage sparked by back-to-back 3s by Carter Clark. Owen Page hit a 3, and Landen Gilmore knocked down another as the buzzer sounded for halftime to make it 22-21 Lyman.

"Lyman controlled the pace really well and slowed us down in transition. They didn't want to let our guards attack the rim and wanted to make us perimeter-oriented. We talked to Landen Gilmore at halftime, and we said you're going to hit two threes in the second half to open things up for us. Braydon Bradshaw was guarding him, and he wouldn't leave the paint. Obviously, that was creating trouble for our 5'10" guards. They were attacking the rim and running into all kinds of shot blockers when they got there," said Abel.

As his coach predicted, Gilmore hit two 3s in the second half that helped Worland to their first lead.

"I just figured if they were going to lay off of me that much to just shoot it. At halftime, coach Abel told me that I was going to make two in the second half, so I said, alright, I'll do it," said Gilmore.

The third quarter against Lyman was the turning point the Warriors needed. Leaning on their defense, the Warriors outscored the Eagles 10-0 in the third.

Shutting out Lyman didn't happen because of an adjustment at halftime, but the Warriors executing their defensive game plan.

After Lyman forced Worland out of their zone early, the Warriors went to a man defense and sent a double team at Bradshaw and those double teams were more effective in the second half.

"We just did it better. We didn't adjust anything other than we needed to get our helper to Bradshaw quicker. We came out in a 2-3 zone, we don't do that very often, but we played a 2-3 zone for about four or five possessions. They quickly took a 7-2 lead against it. We subbed Owen in, and we switched to man.

"We were just late getting there in the first half. Bradshaw is really good. He's the 3A Player of the Year for a reason. We struggled to make him a passer or turn him over in the first half. The second half, we got more physical with him," said Abel. "Brock guarded him the whole game. And he started using his strength to force Bradshaw slightly further off his spots. Bradshaw stopped posting up so deep in the paint. When he got the ball in tight, we got our double team to him faster."

While Worland held Lyman scoreless in the third, the Eagles did not go quietly.

The Warriors went scoreless for a chunk of the fourth quarter, meanwhile, the Eagles kept digging into that Worland lead.

The Eagles finally tied the game with a minute left at 35-all. Thirty seconds later Brock Douzenis drew a foul and calmly drained both free throws to put Worland up by two at 37-35.

Getting the ball across halfcourt, the Eagles called a timeout with 20 seconds remaining, but their play out of the timeout was blown up by a Douzenis steal, who got the ball to Gonsalez.

Gonsalez was quickly fouled and went to the line for the one-and-one. The senior missed the first three throw, and the Eagles grabbed the board and immediately looked for the tie or win as the game's final 15 seconds played out.

With the nervous cheering from the Worland and Lyman crowds, the anxiety at the Ford Wyoming Center was at its peak. Every dribble, cut to the basket or screen, was watched with an anxious intensity.

As the seconds slowly ticked off the clock, the Warriors defense gave the Eagles limited options until Eagles guard McCoy Smith had to heave a 3-point shot from nearly midcourt.

Gonsalez quickly closed on Smith and tipped the ball, which brought the potentially game-winning shot well short of the rim. However, Bradshaw had Gilmore boxed out and was getting ready to catch the ball with no one between him and the basket.

Due to quick thinking on Gilmore's part, the senior jumped and tapped the ball out of bounds before Bradshaw could get his hands on it. When the ball finally hit, .8 seconds remained.

Lyman used their final timeout to draw up a play to tie the game.

All the Warriors needed to do on the inbounds was to get a fingertip on the ball. Thanks to an overthrown lob, it wasn't needed, as the Eagles couldn't even get a shot off before the buzzer sounded.

And as that buzzer sounded, the Warriors celebrated at midcourt with the Worland faithful excitedly cheering them on from the stands.

"We're so resilient as a team. It's all of those years playing together, and you could tell it paid off. We've been playing together since the third grade, and I can't stop smiling," said Warrior senior guard Kade Weber. "It's so awesome."

Clark was the Warriors leading scorer against Lyman with 13 points on 5 for 10 shooting, going 3 for 5 from 3. Gilmore had 12 points shooting 3 for 6 from 3 and 4 for 7 from the field.

Rounding out Worland's scoring vs. Lyman was Page with six points, Douzenis with four points, Gonsalez with two points and Weber with one point.

Gilmore's 12 points and 3-point shooting were crucial to the Warriors win over Lyman. Points not only came at a premium that game, but Gilmore's shooting forced Bradshaw to leave the paint to defend him on the perimeter.

"Offense was always kind of a bonus from Landen. All year long, if we got scoring from him, we were happy. Landen always had that in him. His shot is the prettiest shot on the team. We've said that all along, he's got a great jump shot. But being 6'5" and 205 pounds, a lot of times, he's not asked to do that on our team, but we definitely knew he was capable. That was the one thing Lyman didn't know about us. They didn't think Landen was a willing shooter out there.

"Landen had struggled with a chipped bone in his ankle, kind of all season long and then sprained his good ankle the Tuesday before the state tournament. Going into state, if we got anything out of Landen, that would be great, and then he comes out and outperforms all our expectations. Without him, we're not state champions. It was pretty cool for him," said Abel. "He had a very tough season, and for him to end it that way is just truly awesome."

The Warriors' defense wasn't just key in their victory against Lyman but all tournament long. Whether against Torrington, Buffalo or Lyman, the Warriors defense tightened their grip with each quarter, which is exactly how they drew it up.

"Before we played Torrington, we talked about tying a tie. We asked who could tie a tie in the locker room, and some of the boys raised their hands. I talked about when I was student-teaching it was the first time I was trying to tie my own tie. I kept doing it wrong, and I would get some weird knot. There wasn't YouTube on your phone to look up how to tie a tie back then. I remember when I finally got a knot that would tighten, the good feeling I felt when I pulled the small string on the tie, and it tightened around my neck.

"I told the guys, that's how our defense needs to operate this weekend. We just need to slowly be like a tie you pull tight around their necks. That was how our defense played in both that semifinal and championship game," said Abel.

The second-half defense by the Warriors against Buffalo was a great example of how they slowly tied the tie.

At halftime and the game tied at 30-all, the Bison were shooting 54.5% from the field, most coming from midrange.

Buffalo's hot shooting didn't have to do with Worland's lack of defense. Actually, the Warriors were playing well defensively. The Bison were knocking down tough shots.

Knowing that Buffalo couldn't sustain that level of shooting for another half, Abel encouraged his team to stay the course defensively. The move worked, and as the Worland defense wore Buffalo down, the Bison's shooting dipped to 27.3% in the second half.

"Against Buffalo, we gave up 55% shooting in the first half, and we played great defensively. They're just a good mid-range shooting team. Eli Patterson is great there, but they have several guys that can just hit 10- to 15-footers really, really well. If we give something up, that's kind of what we're designed to give up. We just said, look, it's not sustainable. They can't keep that pace going.

"We just have to trust it and keep rolling. In the second half, we started wearing their legs down. A lot of Patterson's shots in the second half that were missed were short. They went from 55% shooting in the first half to 27% in the second half. It was really all about our defense in all three games this weekend. I'm just proud of how the guys made some big plays there in the second half to pull away," said Abel.

Resiliency is usually developed after a setback, and for the Warriors, that setback came last season. Worland was the defending champions and the No. 1 team in 3A for most of the 2022 season, but two upsets at regionals altered the postseason.

The first upset came in the 3A West regional semifinals when Powell beat Worland. The Warriors rallied to finish third at regionals. The second upset was in the 3A East regional tournament when Rawlins beat Douglas, the No. 2-ranked team in 3A, in the regional championship.

As a result of those upsets, the game most expected to happen in the 3A State championship occurred in the quarterfinals when W No. 3 Worland faced E No. 2 Douglas. The game ended in a 58-47 loss for Worland, but as painful as that loss was, it was the catalyst for this season's championship run.

"We've been thinking about this ever since we lost to Douglas last year in that first round. As soon as we lost, we were coming back, and we made it happen," said Douzenis.

That loss to Douglas at state last season refocused the Warriors and set them down the path of developing their resiliency.

"The mental edge with this group changed from last year to this year. Last year's group was maybe a little bit, I would say, entitled. They won state as sophomores. I think they spent the whole junior season expecting it to happen and thinking it would be easy. This year, the guys understood this wasn't going to be easy. It was going to be something that was really, really hard," said Abel.

While last season's state tournament started the Warriors down this path, battling against a highly competitive 3A West week in and week out this season, helped them hone their resiliency.

"The 3A West was really, really tough. You look at Douglas, taking their loss in the semifinals. Douglas was in the East and went the last two months of a regular season without being tested. Whereas we were in the West, and maybe we weren't as talented as Douglas was top to bottom, but we were getting tested every single weekend.

"That little bit of a mental edge helped our guys. So when Douglas was in a tough game for the first time in two months at state, they couldn't pull it out. Whereas our guys had been playing tough games the last three weeks, and it was more of an area of comfort for them," said Abel. "When we were behind in a state championship game or the second half of a semifinal game, they knew we could come back and pull it out."

Learning from past defeats and not shying from a fight helped the Warriors end their season on a 22-game winning streak. That resiliency guided them not just during the season but when the games mattered most, and it is why they are the 2023 3A State champions.

"We said when it got to postseason time, we were just going to refuse to lose. We lived by that all postseason," said Clark.