This time, it's all Waukegan

There was no half-court buzzer beater this time.

And there weren't fans swarming the court and screaming with unbridled joy.

But, hey, Jereme Richmond and his Waukegan teammates will take a win over rival Warren any day of the week.

Before facing off Saturday night in their Thanksgiving tournament matchup at Warren High School, the last time these two Lake County heavyweights met up was in a heated sectional championship battle in March on Waukegan's home floor. Warren took a 1-point lead with 4.7 seconds left on two mega-clutch free throws by Brandon Paul, who went on to be named Illinois' Mr. Basketball and is now starring at the University of Illinois as a freshman.

But Waukegan got the ball into Richmond and he lofted a prayer from halfcourt that hit nothing but net as the buzzer sounded.

"Nothing like that was needed this time," Richmond said very matter-of-factly.

Not even close.

Warren hung around for the first half Saturday but the Bulldogs ran away with a 74-50 victory by turning up the heat defensively after the break.

Waukegan, which brings back four of its five starters from the sectional championship team, improves to 3-0 on the season while Warren, which graduated its entire starting lineup from last year, drops to 1-2.

"That (halfcourt buzzer beater in the sectional) was just a shot for that moment," reminisced Richmond, who scored a game-high 25 points on Saturday, including a couple of pretty alley-oop layups and dunks. "The last time I did an interview about (the shot), I just said that I hoped we would never be in a situation like that again. And tonight we handled business."

Waukegan extended a modest seven-point halftime lead (28-21) to 12 points just seconds into the third quarter by forcing Warren into turnovers with its traps.

Richmond had 9 points in the quarter, which ended with the Bulldogs up by 15 points. Less than a minute into the fourth quarter, the lead had swelled to 20 points (56-36).

"We created some havoc, executed well on both ends of the floor and built the lead," said Waukegan coach Ron Ashlaw, who also got double-figures from Quan Connor (16 points) and Aaron Johnson (13 points).

According to Ashlaw, his team always gets pumped to play Warren. But after last year's emotional sectional championship game, the series has taken on added meaning.

"The folklore and the vibrations still come from that game," said Ashlaw, whose team took the momentum from that win and parlayed it into a berth in the Class 4A state championship game. "It also helps with the mindset of what we're trying to do again this year. We got a good taste of it a year ago (by going downstate)."

A year ago, Warren senior forward Shahron Thomas was a reserve and watched most of the theatrics of the sectional title game from the bench.

He plays a much different role for the Blue Devils now.

After scoring a career-high 21 points against Bartlett earlier in the tournament, he scored a team-high 13 points against Waukegan. He was the only Blue Devil to reach double-figures.

"They came out strong and probably had a little more energy than us," Thomas said of the Bulldogs. "We played hard. They just got more steals and made more shots than us."