Postseason seeds are going to be coming out in the next few weeks. Olney is looking to push their resume towards 20 wins and a chance for a No. 1 seed. Charleston will travel on the road with a chance to play spoiler with a chance to pull closer to .500. An underdog crusade and a win within that mark could be Charleston’s Tuesday night if everything goes well.

Here is the preview of tonight’s game. 

Team Records: Charleston (9-11, 4-4) @ Olney East Richland (16-5, 3-2)

Where: Olney High School

Tickets: Tickets can be purchased at Olney High School

School Size: Charleston (796), Olney (735)

JV Tip-Off: 6:00 p.m.

Varsity Tip-Off: 7:30 p.m.

Olneh’s  History: Rob Flanagan enters his 26th season as the head coach of the Tigers. During the 2020-21 season, Flanagan picked up his 400th career win. He owns six Regional Championships, two Sectional Championships, and one state appearance to his resume. The Tigers finished 3rd in Class 2A during the 2007-08 season. Last year, Olney was one of the best teams in Class 3A basketball. The team finished the regular season undefeated and swept the Little Illini Conference (8-0). With that said, Olney was upset by Marion in the Regional Championship to finish the year 27-1. 

Olney’s Past Results: Olney opened the season with a tournament championship. The team blew threw Red Hill 55-19 to start the season. That was followed by a 57-45 win over Fairfield and a 48-42 win over Lawrenceville. The team won a nail-biting 49-48 win over Robinson in the championship game. The team’s first loss of the season came to Mount Zion 58-51. After that, the team defeated Mattoon 50-35, Salem 49-28, and Paris 47-43. After a close 44-34 loss to St. Anthony, the team embarked on a seven-game winning streak, which included familiar wins over Effingham (66-52) and Marshall (70-54). Olney has lost three of their last five games, including losses to state-ranked Casey-Westfield (60-56), as well as to Mt. Carmel (33-29), and Newton (40-37). 

Olney’s Top Players: Junior Ian Winkler leads the team in scoring with 16.0 points per game. He also contributes 3.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 2.6 steals. The second-leading scorer is freshman Casey Thormann with 9.3 points. Sophomore Rex Hallem adds 9.1 points and senior Dawson Brown adds 8.6 points. 

Olney’s Team Stats: Olney is averaging 53.6 points per game. 

Charleston’s Past Results: Last week, Charleston picked up a 51-48 win at home and then traveled to Taylorville with a 67-36 win. On Saturday, the Trojans dropped a close 56-51 non-conference game to St. Joseph-Ogden.