Warroad Boys’ Basketball a Perfect 15-0 Heading into Back Half of Season

When you hear Warroad, you probably think hockey. The town is literally nicknamed “Hockeytown USA,” and the water tower boasts a pair of hockey sticks on the sides.

So, if we told you there’s a team at Warroad High School that is undefeated this winter, you probably would not have guessed boys’ basketball. But as a matter of fact, the Warriors are now 15-0 and ranked 8th in class AA, and perhaps more surprisingly, their success as a program isn’t limited to this season.

And while folks outside of Warroad may not be privy to the goings-on of Warrior boys’ basketball, it doesn’t bother the Black and Gold, according to senior captain Liam Grover.

“They might overlook us a little bit,” he said, “but we always just play our game. So, as long as we play our game, they’ll see.”

This season, 15 teams have seen what Warroad is capable of on the hardwood, and all 15 have lost. The last six years, the Warriors have had five winning seasons, but none of them have started perfect.

Expectations are high, but Kason Pietruszewski, the other senior captain, doesn’t think it adds too much pressure. “In a way there is, but we still try to forget it and play like it’s our first game. Looking for that first win and playing like it’s our last. We know that we have to put in the work every day to get better every day.”

Before each season, the seniors pick three words they want to describe the team – words for them to live by and hold themselves accountable to.

“First off, we started with ‘Scrappy’ because we wanna to be an aggressive team,” explained Grover. “And then ‘Juice’ is because we have energy, and we just like to pick each other up. And then ‘Buy-In’ is just, we need to make sure that we listen to the coaches and buying what they have to say for us to make us successful.”

That means starting practice with conditioning before moving to defensive drills where the Warriors pride themselves, holding opponents to under 50 points per game.

“It has to be because we’re not deep bench-wise, but we’ve got to be able to hold our own defensively and not give up anything easy,” said head coach Vichita Ounchith. “We talk about our first and second effort has to be there, but our third, fourth, or fifth after that has to be there as well for that duration of defense until we have possession of the ball.”

The result is a promising season thus far for Warroad, who has never made it to the state tournament in boys’ basketball. The Warriors, however, aren’t getting ahead of themselves.

“It’s a long goal of ours, so it would mean a lot,” admitted Pietruszewski. “[But for now] we’re just looking one game at a time and that’s how we’re going to make it.”

Warroad has a tough stretch ahead of them, playing six straight road games over the next two weeks. That includes East Grand Forks and Littlefork-Big Falls, both of whom are playing good ball as well with each having double digits in the win column and only two losses.