By Ray Hamill — The hard work in the offseason is paying off for the Hoopa Warriors early in the new campaign.

Last weekend, the Warriors finished 2-1 at the Durham tournament, bouncing back from a tourney opening loss to the host school (55-43) with impressive back-to-back wins over Anderson (61-56) and Paradise (55-48)

But that hasn’t necessarily surprised head coach Roman Hutt.

“All of my returners are off to pretty strong start this year,” Hutt said. “They put in some work in the summer and came in excited for this year and ready to play, and right now it’s coming together for them.”

Seniors Brandon Romero and Lyle McKinnon have been particularly influential early in the new season, while juniors Brian Richards and Malakai McCoy have also made their presence felt.

Returning starters Romero and McKinnon are the team leaders, according to Hutt, and they have been helping to set the tone for their teammates.

Romero is tied with McCoy for the team lead in scoring with 14 points a game and also leads the Warriors with 3.8 assists a game and 1.8 steals.

McKinnon is averaging 8.8 points and is second on the team in rebounds (5.0) and assists (2.4).

Richards, meanwhile, is the team’s third returning starter and leads the Warriors with 7.4 boards a game.

“Brian Richards has been a monster rebounding for us,” Hutt said.

As a team, the Warriors have shown a lot of composure late in games early in the season and have gotten better as the games have gone on, all of which augurs well for the season.

“In the first game (at the Durham tournament), it took us a little bit to get going, but we had a good second half,” Hutt said. “In the next two games we finished really strong and I was impressed with the poise. I was very happy with the poise and how they’re learning to put away games.

“We’ve still got work to do, but it was a good start.”

And that has a lot to do with the manner in which the players have approached the new season.

“I like that they all have good attitudes, and they all support each other,” the head coach added. “They’re a real good group of kids and they’re all in it for each other and have a common goal in mind.”

The Warriors, who are now 3-2, will try to keep their impressive start going when they travel to play at the Trinity Holiday Classic this week, opening against Hayfork on Thursday at 12:45 p.m.