The round-robin tournament to determine seeding for the state tournament took place in Cody late last week through the weekend with the Powell Pioneers facing familiar foes Lovell, Riverton and Cody.

And while the first two games were pretty competitive, Powell ran into a virtual buzzsaw in the finale.

Thursday’s opener saw the Lovell Mustangs pile up the runs early in a game that looked to be lost in lopsided fashion.

Three runs in the first followed by two in the second were answered by one Pioneer run in the third.

But then a seven-run splash in the fourth, with another added in the fifth, had Lovell looking at a 13-1 lead.

Powell, however, would explode in the top of the sixth and spook the ‘Stangs.

Zavier Wantulok reached on an error to lead off, Cameron Schmidt singled and, with one out, Tegan Cordes was hit by a pitch to load the bases.

Ezra Andreason singled Wantulok in and Schmidt scored when Colin Queen drew a bases loaded walk.

The rally continued with two outs as Carson Asher singled home two runs and Tyler Feller brought in two more with a single to right.

Wantulok came up again and came through with an RBI single, Schmidt and Jackson Griffin reached on a walk and hit by pitch — all before Cordes brought Wantulok in on a ground-ball single.

After the outburst, the seemingly insurmountable lead was cut to four at 13-9.

Lovell got one run back in the bottom of the inning, though Powell responded with another run in the top of the seventh on an Asher single to make it 14-10.

But the Mustangs would put up four runs in the bottom of the seventh to pull away and seal the 18-10 win.

With their offense obviously in gear, the Pioneers had a little extra incentive for Friday’s contest when they faced the Riverton Raiders.

Just the weekend before, the Powell squad made the trip to Riverton for an early afternoon doubleheader.

But they arrived to an empty field as the home team insisted the games had been scheduled for the evening, too late a time for the team to play and then make the trip back home — which merely lead to no games being played and an early trip back home.

The combination of a little vengeance, and some pretty heated up bats, served Powell well early on as they raced out to a 6-3 lead.

Kaden Moore and Wantulok had RBI singles in the first inning, while Riverton put up three in the bottom half.

Three more came across in the second as Cordes ripped a line-drive triple to right and scored when a pitch got away, with Moore then driving home two with a single to right after Andreason and Asher had reached.

“We were motivated against Riverton because of the mix up and we had them,” Zavier Wantulok said. “But it seems like we always have one terrible inning that puts us in a hole that we can’t get out of.”

Unfortunately, that inning came in the bottom of the fourth.

After Cordes singled home Wantulok in the top of the inning for a 6-3 lead, four hits, a walk, a hit batter, a wild pitch and two errors allowed four runs to cross and give Riverton the advantage at 7-6.

From there, reliever Baylor Beers stifled the Powell offense and the Raider bats added three in the seventh for the 10-6 win.

Saturday’s finale was the one game of the tournament that wasn’t very competitive as the Pioneers faced as hard a thrower as they had ever faced in Cody’s Parker Shreve.

The 6-foot-4, wiry right-hander was throwing high-octane fastballs that gave the Pioneers fits through the first four innings as Shreve racked up 11 strikeouts.

“We were discussing it and we figured he was throwing 81-84 miles per hour,” assistant coach George Laughlin said. “That might not be Major League type speed, but it’s as fast as you’ll see around here.”

The Cubs’ offense, meanwhile, after young Aiden Jacobsen got out of a first-inning jam, put up three in the second and six in the fourth to take a 9-0 lead.

“(Shreve) was definitely one of the fastest pitchers we have seen,” Wantulok said. “We started loading (our swings) with him earlier and that started to help.”

It certainly did as the bats started catching up in the top of the fifth.

Schmidt and Cordes each reached on infield hits, Powell’s first hits of the game, before Andreason worked a walk to load the bases.

Queen hit into a fielder’s choice, bringing Schmidt in and Asher followed with a single to score Cordes.

A walk to Feller loaded the bases again and ended Shreve’s outing as Brayden Polley came on and ended the inning on a grounder.

And while Cody would get those two runs back and add another for the 12-2 final, the Pioneers, while perhaps overmatched for a few innings against the Cubs, showed a resiliency throughout the tournament that could serve them well at this week’s American Legion State Tournament in Douglas.

Powell will face the the No. 1 south seed Cheyenne Hawks in the double elimination bracket at 3 p.m. Wednesday.