HUNTINGTON — The Logan-Lincoln County game seemed to be all but a formality.

The Class AAA No. 1-ranked Logan High School basketball team came into Wednesday night’s Triple-A sectional tournament game with the Panthers a huge favorite.

In short, the game was expected to be a blowout.

It was, as the Wildcats rolled past the Panthers, 81-61, at the Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse in Huntington and advanced to play in Friday night’s Class AAA sectional championship game against Cabell Midland, which also moved on after knocking off Spring Valley, 63-43, in Wednesday night’s other sectional contest.

Regardless of Friday night’s outcome both the Wildcats (20-3) and Knights (15-8) will advance to play next Tuesday night in the Class AAA regional tournament with state berths on the line. The winner of Friday’s game will host a game next week while the loser will have to travel to play a regional tourney game on the road.

Friday’s finals is a rematch of last year’s sectional tourney game which was won by Cabell Midland on the same Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse floor.

Logan had made five straight trips to the state tourney until last year when the Knights sent the Wildcats home early.

This time could be different as Logan has a stacked roster with Noah Cottrill leading the charge.

Cottrill, a senior guard and WVU signee, led Logan with a 24-point effort in last night’s game against the Panthers.

It was the third time Logan had beaten Lincoln County this season.

The Wildcats won 92-69 at home and then shellacked the Panthers 123-59 in a tournament game at the Madison Civic Center.

Paul Williamson and Timmy Rein also broke into double digits in scoring in last night’s game with 19 and 17 points respectively.

Deyonta Coleman added seven points, while Jordan Canada has six and Bryce Dalton, Seth Hainer, Chris Kelly and Gary Miller also broke into the scorebooks with two points each.

Lincoln County was led by Colton Parsons’ 21 points. He was the only Panther player to reach double digits in scoring.

Lincoln County closed out the season with a 5-18 record.

Logan led just 21-16 after one quarter but outscored the Panthers 21-10 in the second to take a 43-26 halftime lead. The Cats led 68-47 after three and coasted in the fourth quarter as Logan coach Mark Hatcher emptied the bench.

“They hit some shots early and got some confidence,” Hatcher said of Lincoln County after the game. “But after that, we did a really good job on the boards. I thought that we accomplished tonight what we came over here to do. We got the win and now we’ve got two chances. It doesn’t really matter what happens on Friday night but we want to win and have that regional game at Logan. I think that’s a good thing because both teams will come out more relaxed. Cabell Midland is a tough matchup for us. We’ve watched them but we have never played them with Noah and Paul.”

Logan began to pull away from the Panthers in the second quarter.

After Lincoln County had cut the deficit to 22-18, Logan went on a 21-8 run to take a 43-26 lead at the half. Williamson supplied the 17-point cushion at the break after he drilled a 3-pointer with eight seconds left.

The Panthers scored the first five points of the third quarter to trim Logan’s margin to just 43-31 but that was as close as LC would get.

The Wildcats went on a 21-11 run, capped off by Cottrill’s 3-pointer with 1:35 left to push the lead to 64-42. Canada and Williamson then added buckets to make it a 68-42 lead — Logan’s biggest of the night.

The Panthers scored the last five points of the quarter to pull to within 68-47 but the game was pretty much decided.

Coleman jump-started the Cats with a 3-pointer to open the fourth and the rout was on.