MINNEAPOLIS — The second-seeded Dawson-Boyd boys basketball team found a new level in the second half of its Class A quarterfinal matchup against No. 7 Heritage Christian Academy on Thursday at the Target Center. The Blackjacks held a 6-point lead at halftime but ran away with the win in the second half, riding a scoring barrage from Brayson Boike and Gunner Liebl to a 69-46 win.

Holding a 34-28 lead out of halftime, Dawson-Boyd wasted no time flipping the switch. Liebl scored Dawson-Boyd’s first 6 second-half points to extend the advantage to 40-29. After a Carson Stratmoen putback layup, Liebl assisted a Boike basket inside and then hit another basket for his 8th point of the half on a 12-1 Dawson-Boyd run when Heritage Christian called a timeout.

Dawson-Boyd’s lead only continued to balloon from there. Boike converted an and-1 to bring the Blackjacks’ lead to 25 points with seven-and-a-half minutes left in the game. A Liebl eurostep extended the lead to 20 with four minutes left to play, and an emphatic dunk and a pair of free throws brought the Blackjack advantage up to its apex, 69-45, when both teams made a mass substitution with 90 seconds to play.

The Blackjacks first pulled away while facing a 7-6 deficit. Boike finished through contact to give Dawson-Boyd the lead and then slammed home a dunk off a feed from Drew Hjelmeland to extend the advantage to 3 points.

Hjelmeland then came up with a steal to set up a Liebl bucket and, after Heritage Christian called its first timeout five minutes in, he hit another 3 to give Dawson-Boyd a 17-7 lead on a 10-0 run.

Heritage Christian battled its way back down to a 4-point deficit when Owen Haag knocked down a 3-pointer, making the score 27-23 with five minutes remaining in the half. A traveling violation against the Blackjacks gave the Eagles the opportunity to make it a one-possession game, but Heritage Christian shot an airball and Hjelmeland got a floater and a putback to go down on consecutive possessions to bring the Blackjacks back out of the danger zone.

Dawson-Boyd got in foul trouble early. The Eagles entered the bonus with nine minutes left in the half and entered the double bonus in the final two minutes. Jaxton Hastad was called for three first-half fouls but Heritage Christian struggled at the charity stripe; they shot 3 of 8 as a team from the line.

While Abu Tarawallie was able to have his way in the paint, logging 8 points and 11 rebounds at the break with four coming on the offensive glass, he shot 2 of 6 at the line.

An acrobatic layup from Joshua Sokeye and another travel against Dawson-Boyd gave the Eagles another opportunity to make it a one-possession game in the final minute, but Beau Johnson ripped away a steal and Dawson-Boyd carried a 34-28 advantage into halftime.

Dawson-Boyd improves to 28-3 with the win and will play the winner of No. 3 Red Lake County and No. 6 Goodhue in the semifinals at the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena on Thursday at 2 p.m.