Woodland senior Nolan Price celebrated turning 18 years old Monday by draining 3s on four consecutive possessions right before halftime, advancing past Earlville 70-25 in the opening round of the Class 1A Woodland Regional alongside his Warriors teammates and breaking his school’s single-season scoring record.

Happy birthday, kid.

“I think it’s just been a really good year all around,” said Price, who with the late first-half barrage of 3-pointers surpassed Matt Niehaus’ 34-year-old single-season school record of 533 points. “I didn’t think that I’d get that [record] at all, didn’t have that high of expectations at the beginning of the season.

“But as the season’s grown on, I’ve kind of had the feeling the team and I could do a lot. And we did.”

Price and the rest of the regional top-seeded Warriors (23-9) will face Henry-Senachwine at 6 p.m. Wednesday, the Mallards an 82-59 victor Monday over Leland. Woodland, the No. 2 seed in its half of the 1A Amboy Sectional, defeated Henry-Senachwine, the No. 7 seed, twice during the regular season – 61-45 and 55-44.

It would be difficult to imagine things going any better for the Warriors on Wednesday than they did Monday. After Earlville (1-29) took a brief 3-2 lead on a Colton Fruit trey in the opening minute, Woodland rattled off a 20-0 run that made the time remaining on the scoreboard more interesting than the score for the rest of the evening.

Woodland’s lead reached 10 points (13-13) on a Nate Berry jumper just over five minutes into the contest; 20 (28-8) on a Jaron Follmer old-fashioned three-point play 4:27 before halftime; 30 (38-8) on the first of Price’s aforementioned four consecutive 3s over a 1-minute, 44-second stretch just before halftime; 40 (49-8) when a Follmer turnaround jumper bounced in 38 seconds into the second half; and 50 points (70-18) on a Noah Lopez 3-point bucket with Woodland’s starters all on the bench and 3:03 remaining.

“That’s always the goal this time of year, to stay healthy and go right [on the bracket],” Warriors coach Connor Kaminke said. “It’s been an awesome season and we’ve gotten a taste for winning, but I also want to remind these kids that you can never miss an opportunity to appreciate the heck out of every win.

“Most of my career on the sidelines and most of this school’s history, there hasn’t been a whole lot of winning going down, year by year – especially when you get down to the postseason. In my nine years [coaching], this is only the third time we’ve advanced in regional play.

“There’s plenty to be proud of this year, but we still shouldn’t miss an opportunity to be excited and proud to be advancing in the postseason.”

Woodland outshot the Red Raiders 47.3% (26 of 55) to 25.0% (9 of 36), also winning the turnovers forced battle 27-6. Earlville outrebounded its hosts 31-23, and was led on the night by Colton Fruit’s six points, four points from both Darik Farley and Rob Tinson, and a four-point, eight-rebound, two-steal performance put in by Logan May.

“We’re a young team that’s kind of in transition right now,” Earlville coach Gerald Fruit said, “but they came to play. It was a rough season, but we’re growing. We’re developing.

“Woodland sets a lot of picks, and they’re bound and determined to get No. 2 (Price) and No. 11 (Berry) a lot of looks. We tried to defend those picks, but they’re good athletes, and they still got their points.”

While Price’s historic birthday performance included 17 points, a game-high five assists and four steals, sophomore Nate Berry actually led the team in scoring with 26 points and added four rebounds. Follmer (11 points, six steals), Noah Decker (three points, five assists), Brezdyn Simons (two points, five rebounds, five steals) and off the bench Grant Wissen (six points) also contributed for the regional hosts.