Wade Mason made his presence known early and often in the Oak Mountain Academy boys basketball team's 67-22 win against Heirway Christian at home on Monday night.

The sophomore is getting more comfortable in his natural role as he scored 10 points in the first quarter and put up a 26-point, 13-rebound effort even though he sat the entire fourth quarter. OMA coach Lenny Williams attributes Mason's performances of late to him not having to do everything this year.

"That's what I'm trying to get him to do. Last year we needed him to do everything — dribble, pass, shoot — but with [Blake Mason] getting a lot better now we just need [Wade] to rebound, defend and make lay ups around the basket. Now he can go into his natural position," Williams said. "Now when he's getting on the offensive glass he's very hard to stop."

The Warriors (14-2, 4-0) never left any doubt who was going to take Monday night's affair jumping out to a 19-4 lead early and finished the first quarter with a 23-4 lead and took a 39-12 advantage into halftime. With his team already dropping a pair of games against opponents he felt they should beat, Williams was happy to see his team show up ready to play.

"What a lot of people don't understand about this team is, they know they can play from behind, but we don't want to start out that way. We definitely want to send a message. We could see that team in the second round of the playoffs. If we see them again we're basically showing them we're the better team. There are a couple kinks to fix," Williams said.

Along with Wade Mason's big game, Kelton Hunt also posted a double-double with 12 points and 13 boards while Colton Pollard added 10 points, six rebounds and four assists.

The Warriors will have another big game tonight as they host Solid Rock in another region contest. A win will put OMA that much closer to a top seed and a bye in the first round of the region tournament.

"That right there sends a message to me. I said to our guys during shoot-around [Monday], 'Right now you guys are winning games based on me over coaching.' [Monday] they came out and won this game on their own. There's not much I have to say to them. They already understand what they have to do and we wanted to send a message to everyone in our region that we're playing sluggish, but when it's time to step up we can step up," Williams said.