COULEE CITY — After a 2-3 start with a roster chocked full of underclassmen, the Almira/Coulee-Hartline Warrior boys basketball team has rallied and grown together on the court throughout the regular season.

“Being really young and just starting, that made it a big challenge,” ACH Head Coach Graham Grindy said. “We had some lopsided losses there (at the beginning of the season), but they were still good learning experiences.”

Those losses came against 2B schools, on the road against Lind-Ritzville and Lake Roosevelt. After the 2-3 start, ACH went on a six-game winning streak before later moving to 12-6 on the year.

“The slow start was from losing, and getting that in our head and being pissed off a little bit – wanting to win really encouraged us; it lit a fire under us,” ACH sophomore Carter Pitts said. “That helped us a lot.”

Pitts is one of the Warriors with veteran experience, having come off the bench for last year’s state runner-up Warrior squad.

“Three of my starting five were playing middle school last year,” Grindy said. “Carter, my captain, played high school last year but he was the sixth man on a team where those top five guys ate up a lot of minutes. Building leadership, and also guys figuring out what their roles are and what they’re good at, that’s what takes time. I’m really pleased.”

Pitts said the early weeks of the season were focused on learning one another’s play styles, and that the team has come a long way since its 2-3 start.

“At the start of the year we were playing a lot of one-on-one basketball; we hadn't played a lot together,” Pitts said. “Now we’re moving the ball more and playing as a team, which you don’t see a lot in younger teams. Things are starting to click, and it’s starting to look pretty when we’re out on the court.”

With 10 years of experience coaching the Warriors, Grindy said the most important part of the development process is following each step in the operation and adapting to youth.

“I would say the biggest thing is just constant work on the same things, trying not to skip any steps,” Grindy said. “They’re young, and that means maybe you don’t put in as much stuff as you would with an older team. It’s more about teaching them how to run a motion offense, how to play really good man defense with help, and just chemistry.”

ACH eighth-grader Max Grindy, Graham’s son, described the season as a “team effort,” not having one or two players steal the show.

“I think it was our mentality,” Max Grindy said. “We got a lot sharper throughout the year, and we started to get mentally tougher as a team. We started to come together and play as a team, and it really started to form for us after we played those games where we didn’t play great.”

Along with learning the fundamentals of the game, Graham Grindy said one of the Warrior’s biggest improvements has been their decision-making in key situations.

“Early on when you’re young you think ‘We’re down, now I’ve got to do it,’” Graham Grindy said. “Whereas now, instead, it’s ‘I’ve got to find my teammate, I’ve got to find this guy.’ I think chemistry is getting better.”

Even though the roster lists the players as new to the Warriors, they’re not new to playing together.

“I’ve played with these guys for four or five years, and it’s really fun to be able to play with them at the high school level and grow with them,” Max Grindy said.

Following Saturday’s game against league-leading Wellpinit, the Warriors will close out their regular season on the road against Chesterton Academy on Tuesday.

“It’s fun, it’s challenging, it’s frustrating – it’s kind of everything balled up into one,” Graham Grindy said. “The effort and the listening and all that stuff is there, and that’s what’s so enjoyable about these guys. They’re incredibly coachable.”

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.