The Hoopa Warriors are playing like a team that believes it can compete for a conference championship in the new year.

On Saturday, the Hoopa boys capped a late comeback in the third-place game at the Argonaut tournament when influential senior Brandon Romero scored the game-winning basket with just four seconds remaining to lead his team to a thrilling 72-71 victory over Amador.

Check out video footage of Romero’s late-game winner above …

Since dropping two of their first three games of the season, the impressive Warriors have now won seven of eight games and will carry an 8-3 record into the new year.

More impressively, they’re winning with good team complementary basketball.

“We’re putting up a lot of points and sharing the rock a lot,” head coach Roman Hutt said. “I’m impressed with how they’re coming together and playing together as a team. They’re all stepping up and playing good basketball together.”

In their last eight games, the Warriors have been averaging 62.6 points a game.

“I think we’re doing a little bit of everything (well),” Hutt added. “And I like how we’ve been rebounding lately. We’re doing a good job keeping people off the boards.”

The Division-5 Warriors are also beating some quality opponents, and their two tournament wins at Argonaut came against Division-4 schools.

Hoopa opened tournament play against West Campus and won 74-71 in overtime, before losing a semifinal to the host school by a score of 72-58.

“They were all really good teams,” Hutt said of the tournament field. “And we played them all pretty close, except for the second game, which kind of got away from us in the fourth but was pretty close most of the way.”

Romero and fellow senior Lyle McKinnon have been leading the way for their younger teammates and they were both named to the all-tournament team.

McKinnon scored a team-high 19 points and added seven rebounds in the third-place game against Amador, while Romero finished with a double-double, scoring 17 points and pulling down 11 rebounds.

Romero also had a team-high four assists in the win.

Malakai McCoy also has impressed early in the season and scored 17 points in that win, while fellow junior Charles Sorrel chipped in 10 points.

“Malakai has bene lighting it up from 3-point range,” Hutt said.

Another junior, Brian Richards, has been dominating in the paint all December and pulled down 12 rebounds against Amador.

The Warriors are now ranked No. 56 out of 154 teams in the North Coast Section, according to MaxPreps, and they are No. 7 in Division 5.

Next up, they will travel for the Etna tournament, which tips off on Jan. 2.

Submitted photos – Hoopa’s Brandon Romero, left, and Lyle McKinnon.