Johnny Messiha is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover St. Mary's for AZPreps365.com

The St. Mary’s boys basketball team pulled out a comfortable 64-45 home win over Thunderbird on Tuesday night to advance to the 4A quarterfinals.

The Knights are ranked fourth in this year’s postseason and were favorites to defeat 13-seeded Thunderbird. The Knights played up to expectations as they led by double digits the entire second half.

Senior guard Deven Dahlke  scored 20 points to lead the Knights, including a second-quarter explosion when he led the Knights on a 10-0 run in less than two minutes.

“Deven is probably the most underrated guard in the state. The guy puts up numbers in a hurry,” Knights coach Damin Lopez said. “He’s had games where he’s put together six, seven minutes where he pops 19, 20 points on you and before you know it, it increases our lead from eight to 15 or 16. He’s got the capability to do that.”

The Knights (23-3, 11-0) also went on 7-0 run to close the first quarter and a game-sealing 9-0 run in the fourth quarter. They were driven by momentum as their several successful runs resulted from stops on the defensive end that allowed them to push the pace and attack the basket in transition.

Junior forward Garrison Phelps recorded 15 points, many of which came on fast breaks. Sophomore center Jeremiah Cherry provided 14 points, including four dunks that sent the St. Mary’s crowd into a frenzy.

However, the real impact of these players came on the defensive end.

“Offensively their motive was to attack the rim,” Phelps said. “It was more of us just closing gaps. We had two guys that we focused mainly on so we just closed the gaps and that stopped them from getting inside."

The Knights played the entirety of the first three quarters in a full-court press, keying in on Thunderbird’s top two scorers. They started strong defensively, limiting Thunderbird (13-13, 4-7) to only five points in the first quarter. The Chiefs shot 20% from the floor in the first and also committed four turnovers.

While the Chiefs improved offensively throughout the game, St. Mary’s held them to only 31% shooting. They also allowed only 45 points to the Chiefs, who average 57.5 points per game on the season.

“Defensively, I thought we did a great job,” Lopez said. “We were limiting their gaps and their space, particularly from their two playmakers. It was crucial for us to do that.”

Offensively, shots were flying in from everywhere for the Knights, including multiple contested 3-pointers from Dahlke and Phelps. St. Mary’s caught fire from deep in the second and fourth quarters where the Knights scored 22 and 21 points, respectively.

The Knights were most successful on offense when they were able to increase the tempo. They relied on short scoring bursts to distance themselves from Thunderbird, proving their identity as a “run-and-gun” team.

However, there is no leading option for the Knights and the ball seamlessly finds the open man in transition.

“What we preach on the team is that every night the ball finds somebody different, and tonight it found Deven,” Lopez said. “I think he got the energy up for us as a team, but I also think him making shots settled us down a little bit on the offensive side of the ball.”

St. Mary’s next will host fifth-ranked Arcadia (23-5, 8-2) on Friday at 7 p.m.

The Knights eliminated Arcadia in the first round of last year’s 4A state tournament.