NEW ROCKFORD — The Warwick Warriors will compete in this year’s Region 2 tournament.
Originally seeded No. 5 in the District 4 Boys’ Basketball Tournament, the Warriors emerged victorious over Griggs/Midkota in Tuesday’s region qualifier game to stay alive.
“Being in that regional tournament is also an accomplishment itself,” Warwick head coach Ryan Brown said. “There are 74 Class B teams. To be essentially in the top 32, you’ve earned your way on the top half of the list.”
Elijah Feather Jr. won District 4 Senior Athlete of the Year in the post-tournament award ceremony. He was Warwick’s lone honoree to the all-district team. He scored 69 points over three games in the tournament.
“He’s shifty. He doesn’t look like a real shifty player, but when he moves with the ball, he’s smooth,” Brown said. “His step-back threes are obviously a threat, so everyone has to stay honest on that. But he’s really turned into a good, aggressive player from the three-point line. We all know he can shoot. He’s been a shooter for all his years on varsity.”
In the second region qualifier game of the day, No. 7-seeded Nelson County took a close loss to Larimore, bringing its resilient season to an end.
First region qualifier: Warwick 67, Griggs/Midkota 51
The No. 5-seeded Warriors (11-10) got 27 points from Feather Jr. in the 16-point victory over the No. 2-seeded Titans (13-9).
“We talked yesterday about coming out consistent throughout the whole game,” Brown said. “We know if we can play four quarters against any team, we have a good chance.”
The teams combined for seven three-pointers in the first quarter. G/M didn’t make a field goal until 4:25, but it was a game-tying three by Kindle Carlson. Early on, nothing was spinning the right away for either team. It was a 2-1 Warwick lead for more than three minutes of game time.
The first quarter featured five lead changes. Aiden Black hit two triples, including one that put the Warriors up 10-9. Back-to-back threes from Brady Haugen and Cale Spitzer gave the Titans a 17-11 lead. The second of Black’s three-pointers sliced the deficit to 17-14 going into the second quarter.
“We talked about it at the end of the first quarter, knowing that they’re a good team. They can get hot when they want to,” Brown said. “When they got hot, we needed to know that we could not allow that to happen again. And that was our goal.”
The Titans’ scoring dried up. Their threes stopped landing, and they couldn’t finish drives or grab defensive rebounds.
G/M still clung to a 21-19 lead before Warwick wound up finishing the half on a 12-0 run. Touche Jr. and Feather Jr. each hit a three in the run. The Titans’ drives became less composed and more desperate.
G/M scored just four points in the second quarter as Warwick took a 10-point lead into the second half.
“The second quarter was all defense,” Brown said. “We did exactly what our goal was to do, was to limit them under 10. We did even better.”
The Titans briefly recaptured some momentum with an 8-0 run that cut the lead to 38-33. Wyatt Hoyt came off the bench and scored eight in the second half, and Haugen and Carlson each hit a three in the third quarter.
Their student section’s energy level was picking up.
“We wanted to make sure they didn’t get any more rebounds off it,” Brown said. “Get one or two stops, and then get one or two buckets off it. And, well, we came right out and did that, and it helped us get that momentum back in our favor.”
Warwick just as swiftly responded with a 9-0 run. All nine were scored by Feather Jr., who capped the run with one of his three triples in the quarter. He put up 15 points in the quarter overall.
The Warriors put the hammer down in the final eight minutes, leaving this No. 2-seeded G/M team frustrated and shaking their heads.
Only one of these squads gets to continue playing. And it’ll be these Warwick Warriors, competing in the Region 2 tournament in Devils Lake next week.
“For us, it’s about taking the day off, coming back, regrouping mentally, looking at what we need to do depending on who we match up with,” Brown said. “We were blessed and we earned our way into regionals now for the fourth year in a row.”
Second region qualifier: Nelson County 48, Larimore 50
The Chargers’ surprise run as the No. 7 seed came to an end in another barnburner.
On Friday, Nelson County (8-14) was on the winning end of a game like this. And the team used its underdog mentality to give the No. 4-seeded Polar Bears (14-8) a fight. The Chargers got 16 points from Zane Anderson, 10 from Rider Schmidt and eight from Brody Rainsberry. They combined for eight three-pointers. But they also went 0-of-6 from the free throw line, a small detail that proved to be the difference.
The first half was a low-scoring, back-and-forth affair. Nelson County, despite going 0-of-5 from the free throw line in the first quarter, got a go-ahead three from Zane Anderson and narrowly led 9-8 at the end of the period.
Neither team scored for more than two minutes into the second quarter.
Avery Gratton got one in the hole to put Larimore ahead, but back-to-back buckets by Rider Schmidt gave Nelson County a 13-10 lead.
Baron Burns briefly tied it with a triple for the Polar Bears. The ball got away on the Chargers’ next possession, but it happened to trickle right to Axel Anderson, who had all the time in the world and made a three from the corner.
The Chargers held onto a 20-19 lead at halftime. Schmidt scored three times in the second quarter, giving him a team-high eight at the half.
Larimore reclaimed a momentary lead late in the third quarter after going on a 7-0 run. But it was a 33-33 landlock going into the fourth quarter. It would have to come down to whichever team was hot at the end.
The answer, early on in the final period, was both teams. Rainsberry hit a pair of go-ahead threes from dead central. After a basket by Larimore’s Brison Falch, it was knotted up at 39-39.
Nelson County swayed ahead. Z. Anderson and Sy Maresh each found the rim to put the Chargers up by four, but Jace Collison landed a three for Larimore. Collison came up big again to tie the game at 45-45.
Anderson capped his big night with a go-ahead three — his fourth triple of the game. Baron Burns tied it back up with Larimore’s sixth three-pointer of the game. The Polar Bears got two key free throws from Mason Myers, going up 50-48 with less than 20 seconds left.
The Polar Bears were below the foul limit, which they used to their advantage to take some time off the clock. The Chargers, now in a rush, were called for traveling. The crowd of Polar Bear orange erupted with the knowing joy that it was essentially over with only 2.1 seconds left.
Thus ended this little spark of Chargers magic. They struggled to win games for most of the season, and were only seeded seventh out of eight teams in the district. But they won four in a row and had two neck-and-neck battles with higher-seeded teams to end their season on a better note.
