SOUTHERN SECTION FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS NCAA VOLLEYBALL REGIONALS : Planning Makes Perfect for Orange Lutheran : Division X: Running back Holloway says team envisioned this march toward a Section title before the season began.

Eleven victories in 13 games. A first league championship, albeit a shared one with Cerritos Valley Christian. The top seeding in the Southern Section Division X playoffs. A berth in the championship game tonight against Van Nuys Montclair Prep.

Some would call Orange Lutheran’s 1994 football season a dream come true.

Running back Che Holloway begs to differ.

“Call it a goal season,” said Holloway, a 16-year-old junior, who with quarterback Joe Juliano and receiver Michael Crawford is the nucleus of the Lancers’ potent offense.

“We had planned this the whole time. We had worked hard the summer and fall, and didn’t expect anything less, to be quite honest,” Holloway said. “When we’ve been behind in games, it’s like, ‘We can’t lose, we’ve worked too hard to lose.’ That’s the frame of mind.”

But he also admits it has been “pretty amazing” to see the best football season in school history unfold in this fashion, because--on the surface--Orange Lutheran does not give the impression of being a dominant team.

“When you look at our players--only one or two weighing over 200 pounds--if you saw them walk down the street, there’s no way you’d think we’d be in the Division X finals,” Holloway said. “But we want to play football.”

And play it they do. Orange Lutheran boasts an offensive playbook as thick as the Yellow Pages, and Holloway is one of its main features. The 5-11, 175-pounder has rushed for 1,162 yards in 143 carries (an 8.1-yard average) in his first full season here. That already ranks him fifth on the Lancers’ all-time career rushing list.

Holloway also has caught seven passes for 205 yards, and scored 19 touchdowns. Seventeen have come on the ground, a school single-season record. In the regular-season finale against Valley Christian, Holloway tied the school record for the longest touchdown reception--a 91-yard catch on the game’s first play. It set the tone for Orange Lutheran’s 30-17 victory.

It’s fitting that Holloway is carving his niche in Lancer history. His father, Will, impressed with the school’s academic and social atmosphere, wanted his son to attend Orange Lutheran from the start. “He said if we lived back East, he’d put me in one of those prep schools,” Holloway said. But Holloway was more interested in joining his friends at Tustin High, where he enrolled in 1992.

Once Holloway got there, however, “I found it was not what I thought it would be. So Dad said, ‘Let’s go to the school we originally planned on.’ ”

Holloway transferred in February 1994. When he got on the football field, the Lancer coaches saw they might have something special.

“I thought he might be good, but not this good,” Coach Jim Kunau said. “But he’s taken tremendous pressure off Joe and allowed him to have the great year at quarterback he’s having.”

To have such a season takes a group effort, Holloway said.

“You’ve got to have some linemen who want to open holes for you,” he said. “Not only have the guards, center and tackles done a great job blocking, so has fullback Matt Stratton. But, as a runner, you’ve got to not want to go down; spin out of tackles, cut back. . . . “

Holloway’s trademark is speed. On the option pitch play or a short pass in the flat, he can buzz by startled defenders before they can react. But he’s not afraid to run off-tackle or up the middle, even when giving away 50-70 pounds. Plus he’s tougher than he looks; Holloway has missed only one game this season, when he sat out the Laguna Beach matchup because of back spasms.

He’s also quite bright, carrying a 3.7 grade-point average. And intelligence plays an important role in the types of plays Orange Lutheran tends to run.

“Some kids may have to go over something several times,” Kunau said. “Let Che see it once and he’s got it.”

Holloway modestly claims it’s not that easy.

“You have to learn all the motions and sets,” he said. “It’s not so much the plays; once you learn the numbers called, you know where the ball is going. Still, it took me a month or two to get comfortable.”

Neither Holloway nor his teammates expect Montclair Prep to make things comfortable for them tonight at Los Angeles Valley College. The Mounties may be an at-large team, but at 10-1, many think they are the best team in Division X.

But Orange Lutheran, which has spent the season playing bigger, stronger teams, will show up. And so will Holloway, who was held to 34 yards in the semifinals by San Pedro Mary Star of the Sea, and does not want his season to conclude in that fashion.

Still . . .

“Win or lose, it’s a season I will not forget,” Holloway said.