While the Warrenton boys basketball team may not, collectively, have all the answers, a big one recently came to light.

After starting the season 1-6, the Warriors have won three of the team’s last four games by sharing the basketball, much to the delight of Coach Mark Thomas.

After defeating Wright City on Dec. 29, the Warriors reeled off back-to-back wins at the ’12 courts of Christmas’ event in Kansas City, beating New Heights Christian 56-52 in overtime on Dec. 29 before running past Lexington (Mo.) 69-45 the next day. Warrenton dropped its most recent home game on Monday to St. Charles.

“They’ve figured out that using each other is going to make it hard for teams to guard us,” Thomas said. “That’s how everybody eats.”

Against New Heights, the trio of seniors Deadrick Forrest, Brodey Meier and junior Taylor Anderson ‘ate’ to the tune of 18, 14 and 10 points, respectively.

A day later, Meier scored 20 points, while Carter Martin added 13 points, and Forrest added 10.

An essential factor in the win over New Heights was the team's success in winning a close game, which hadn't happened yet this season. It was the first win in five tries for the team to win a game decided by single digits.

“We knew that (New Heights) was a good team, they were 8-1,” Meier said. “Lexington flies around. They get after it. Winning those games feels very good. It just shows us that we need to go out and play our game. At the start of the season, we weren’t. We need to keep this up.”

Meier said the team has caught a breath of fresh air heading into the season’s final stretch.

“Our season didn’t start off so great,” Meier said. “Getting these three wins should really help us as we go into conference play.”

While Warrenton has been riding high on a successful end to the 2025 portion of its schedule, the Warriors have had much more important things to worry about than basketball of late.

Thomas said that the team and the school community, as a whole, have been focused on the health of one of their own.

Sophomore Joe Greene has been in the hospital dealing with a scary health issue.

“Joe had been having headaches for a month; he was on the (Kansas City) trip with us, and he was fine,” Thomas said. “He came home and told his parents he had a headache and went to bed. He was unresponsive the next morning when they went to wake him up. They took him to the hospital, he had fluid on his brain, so they life-flighted him to Cardinal Glennon.”

Thomas said that the procedures Greene have undergone include a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC) line to drain the fluid and surgery to remove a cyst that was pinching off the natural fluid drainage from his brain.

Thomas said that the community has rallied around Greene and his family.

“We did a prayer vigil here (at school) last night (on New Year’s night),” Thomas said. “It’s tough. It’s weighing on the team. Obviously, we had a bad practice today. Joe’s a big part of our (junior varsity) and our varsity. I think, as of (New Year’s) night, the community has raised $3,100 for the family and a lot of people are taking food over for them. His surgery was today.”

Thomas later added that Greene’s surgery went well.

“He’ll have short-term memory loss and will have to do therapy to regain (some functions),” Thomas said. “Other than that, he should be good.”