Chris Bowling and Jacob Nicolds may not have said goodbye to home games at Gilbert High. Especially if they continue to play the way they did on Thursday night.

They celebrated a night partly in their honor -- Senior Night -- by combining for 48 points in essentially a wire-to-wire 67-52 win over rival Highland at The Jungle.

"They (Bowling and Nicolds) have played varsity since their sophomore year and have gotten better and better," Gilbert coach Jay Caserio said. "This game was kind of similar to the one we played against them last week. That one was tied at halftime, and then we made a run in the third quarter. We've played very well sine the first of the year."

Gilbert (17-6 overrall, 14-3 power-ranking games) won for the ninth time in its last 10 games and is tied with Corona del Sol for the Division I Section I title. Those teams meet on Wednesday (Feb. 10) to decide the section winner. Highland has suddenly gone in the other direction, absorbing its fifth consecutive loss to fall to 14-10. Gilbert was No. 4 in the power-rankings at the start of play Thursday and Highland was No. 8. The top eight teams in the power-rankings get a first-round bye and a home game in the second round at state.

Nicolds had the hot hand in the first half helping Gilbert break out to a 15-9 lead after one quarter and improve the margin to 29-20 by halftime. Nicolds scored 13 of his 21 points in the first half and made 5-of-6 field goals in the half. Bowling began heating up late in the second quarter with back-to-back threes.

Bowling was just getting untracked with his offense before halftime. He sank two quick threes in he third quarter to key an 8-0 run that pushed Gilbert's lead to 37-22. Bowling tallied 18 of his 26 points in the second half.

Highland's 6-foot-9 forward Tim Fuller, its leading scorer, had a difficult night with persistent foul trouble and Gilbert making him ts defensive focus. Fuller sat out a chunk of the second period with two fouls and in the third period added his third and fourth. To Highland's credit, they made a run late in the third period with Fuller out as Iisia Washington (eight points) and Nick Lott (team-high 15 points) helped slice the lead to 41-36 by quarter's end.

Gilbert pushed the lead back to double digits with an 8-2 run to begin the final quarter. When Fuller returned with six minutes to play, Gilbert was back in control. Fuller finished with 12 points, but without a couple teammates who had fouled out a comeback was not forthcoming.

"I'm happy with the way we're playing right now," Caserio said. "Every team has a rough stretch. We had ours at Christmas. Highland is going through one now."