INA - "Desmond Holloway had a super game. I mean just awesome game. He was a big difference in the game," said Dan Sparks, head coach for the Wabash Valley College Warriors basketball team.

Holloway's 40 points led the Warriors to an 82-60 victory over the Olney Central College Blue Knights in the Region 24 Tournament's first round Thursday. The tournament is being played at Rend Lake College.

The win, which avenged two regular-season losses to OCC, now pits the Warriors against the top-seeded Southwestern Illinois College Blue Storm, an 89-73 winner over Kaskaskia College, at 5 p.m. today (Friday) in the semifinals. In other action, John A. Logan defeated Lake Land, 76-64, and Lincoln Trail upset Southeastern Illinois, 70-65 in overtime.

The Championship Game will be at 5 p.m. Sunday.

WVC led from the start, and by as many as 17 points in the first half. It was Holloway who got the Warriors started with a pair of free throws a little over a minute into the game. He added a bucket for a 4-0 lead. The closest OCC came was 4-2, as Joe Wright scored.

WVC pulled out to an 18-4 lead, a sign of things to come, when Jared Maners dropped in a three-pointer. The Knights cut it back to nine, 18-9, as Jared Rehmel hit a bucket and Colton Booher connected on a three-point play, but they never got closer the rest of the game.

The Warriors went on a 9-4 run and took a 27-13 lead. WVC's biggest first-half leads were 31-14 and 34-17. Holloway scored the points that gave his squad those 17-point margins.

WVC took a 40-27 lead into the halftime locker room.

In the second half the Blue Knights cut the Warriors lead down to nine again, the last time at 52-43 on Rehmel's bucket. But the Warriors, just as they did in the first half, went on a run, this time a 20-4 spree, for a 72-47 advantage. Holloway started it with two free throws. Chris Duncan finished it with a slam dunk.

And when Duncan put the ball down, less than seven minutes remained. The Warriors lead slipped under 20 points only once, at 74-55 when Cameron Hall hit a Blue Knights free throw.

Holloway responded with a bucket, Andre Miller added two free throws, countered by Ryan Laswell's tip-in, then Maners dropped in a shot. Carlos Rodriguez scored WVC's final points. Olney's Jeffrey Dupree connected on a three-point play with 24.6 seconds left.

"He maybe forced one shot, a shot maybe he shouldn't have taken," Sparks said of Holloway. "The rest of them, they all came to him. He was either open or he was going to the basket."

Holloway was not the only WVC cager to draw praise from Sparks. The coach said, "I thought everybody really worked hard. I though Jared Maners played a super basketball game. And Andre Miller was really good on the boards for us, and Duncan. (Josh) Lockett started out pretty good but he got those three fouls on him and that kind of set him back."

"But I'm pleased with the way our guys played. (They) played with some emotion, played hard," Sparks added.

The coach also said the Warriors' goal was to hold Olney Central under 62 points.

In addition to Holloway, WVC received double-digit scoring from Miller with 13 and Duncan with 10.

The Warriors hit 13 of 19 free throws for 68.4 percent.

Olney was led by Ahmad Grant with 13, Booher with 12 and Laswell with 10.

The Blue Knights hit 11 of 20 free throws for 55 percent.

BOX SCORE

Wabash Valley: Duncan, 5-0-0--10; Maners, 1-1-1--6; Chatt, 0-0-0--0; Landry, 0-0-0--0; Wickware, 1-0-0--2; Odum, 0-0-2--2; Lewis, 0-0-0--0; Holloway, 13-2-8--40; Walker, 1-1-0--5; Smith, 0-0-0--0; Miller, 4-1-2--13; Rodriguez, 1-0-0--2; Lockett, 1-0-0--2; Totals, 27-5-13--82

Olney Central: Daniels, 0-0-1--1; Grant, 2-2-3--13; Rehmel, 3-0-1--7; Wright, 3-0-0--6; Dupree, 1-0-1--3; Booher, 3-1-3--12; Hall, 2-0-2--6; Watkins, 1-0-0--2; Laswell, 2-2-0--10; Cox, 0-0-0--0; Totals, 17-5-11--62

Technical foul: Olney Central - Rehmel