Warriors split games in regionals

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Steeleville Warriors opened play in last week's Class 1A Trico Regional Tournament with a 62-50 win over Marissa. Steeleville took control early, holding leads of nine points after one quarter and 18 by halftime. The Meteors seemed unable to stop Andrew Pokrzywinski, who finished as the leading scorer with 26 points. Other offensive totals for Steeleville were Nick Potter with 19, Coire Reel with eight and Colin Smith, Torrey Geberding and Josh Diercks with three each.

In the semifinals Steele-ville took on the top seeded Pioneers in front of a large and vocal crowd at Trico High School. The Warriors put up a great battle against their rivals but eventually fell by a score of 57-51. While neither team dominated play during the exciting first three quarters, the Warriors did hold five point leads on a few occasions and seemed to be in good position to pull off the upset. Steeleville still led by five very early in the fourth quarter. Shots started falling for the Pioneers, while on the other end of the court the Warriors struggled and missed a few easy shots. Trico ended the game on a 21-10 run and sent Steeleville home with a final overall record of 15-16. Potter had the hot shooting hand from three-point range and finished as Steeleville's offensive leader with 19 points, Pokrzywinski scored 14, Diercks had nine, Reel put in seven and Smith added two. Reel was the top rebounder and Diercks led in steals.