Warren senior Kody Vega, left, will help the Dragons in a physical District 10 4A quarterfinal matchup vs. Hickory at 6 p.m. today at Sharon High School. Photo courtesy of Mark Evans

The Dragons will have plenty of motivation today when they take on Hickory in the District 10 4A playoff quarterfinals.

When Warren’s boys basketball team plays the Hornets at 6 p.m. at Sharon High School, the Dragons will face the program that eliminated them a year ago on its way to the D10 title.

“All the motivation we need is that they have sent us home, or to the losers bracket, the last two years,” said 20-year Warren head coach Jeff Berdine.

When Warren upset Fairview in last year’s D10 4A quarterfinal, the Dragons next played Hickory — which was on its way to its third straight district championship.

Region 5 champion Fairview may be this year’s favorite in 4A, and Hickory may have graduated four of seven players who played in the semifinal win over Warren a year ago, but it’s still Hickory.

Hickory lost three of its last five regular-season games to finish 14-7 and drop to the four seed in Class 4A, but Sharon High School is as close to a home game as it gets.

“Keys for us will be to match their physical style of play,” said Berdine. “They have two bigs that are extremely talented and aggressive athletes, and two shooters, so when we help, we’ll have to help and recover.”

Penn State football commit Jackson Pryts has led Hickory with 13.7 points per game while Joey Fazzone is scoring 11.9, Aidan Enoch 10.7 and Tyson Djakovich 9.4 points.

At 6-foot-5, the senior Pryts is a presence as a rebounder and inside defender.

“Our goals throughout the whole season have been to be a physical team, bump cutters, know our defensive roles and rebound, so we can get out in transition,” said Berdine. “Our focus needs to be on providing maximum effort with limited mistakes just as we talk about all year long.”

Warren is 14-8 with non-region losses to Prep (17-5), DuBois (16-6), Seneca (17-5), Erie (12-10) and Brookville (20-2) along the way… in a region with Fairview (20-2), Harbor Creek (17-5), Oil City (14-8) and Corry (14-8). The Dragons, who come in just outside the top 10 in points allowed (46.3) in all of D10, get 14.2 points per game from junior Parks Ordiway, 10.7 from senior JT Blum, 9.4 from sophomore point guard Tommy Nyquist, and 8.7 from junior Owen Becker. Sophomore Brady Berdine is averaging 10 points per game over Warren’s last four games.

“I think we had some good games down the stretch where we learned some things about ourselves as players and as a team,” said Coach Berdine. “I feel our scrimmage on Monday was a good, physical scrimmage that should hopefully help set the tone for us … tonight.”

TOMORROW: Eisenhower boys preview.