Hard fouls feel so good in the midst of a 19-0 run.

Blanton’s intense performance off the bench spurred the Salisbury boys basketball team to a huge third quarter and a win in the first round of the 2A state playoffs. The Hornets’ 65-48 victory over Hibriten was their first in the playoffs since the 1993-94 season and moved Salisbury into a sectional semifinal date Wednesday at 7 p.m. against Northwood, champion of the Central Tar Heel Conference.

“This was a big playoff game, a win we needed,”said Blanton, who provided eight points, 10 rebounds, two blocks and unlimited energy when he entered the game. “I felt I should get the guys fired up to take it all the way to Chapel Hill.”

Dreams of advancing to the state finals looked far-fetched in a first half that saw Salisbury shoot 29 percent from the field and commit nine turnovers. The Hornets (14-14) held a tenuous 27-26 lead only because of Hibriten’s 11 turnovers and 36-percent shooting.

“Everybody was mad,” Hornet point guard Boo Blount said. “We finally get in a playoff game, it’s at home, and we wanted to come out and show everybody what Salisbury is really about.”

Hornet Ken Drye opened the third quarter with a pair of free throws, and when Blanton scored on the break to put Salisbury ahead 31-26, Hibriten head coach Chad Wright called a quick timeout.

When Panther Michael Pearson drained a long jumper on the ensuing possession, he tallied Hibriten’s final points for nearly four minutes.

Blount drilled a 3-pointer and long jumper and Thad Pryor scored to extend to a 38-28 lead. Then Drye blocked Pearson’s next shot and fed Blanton for a fast-break layup and another Panther timeout.

Drye blocked a layup attempt the next time down and Blanton converted off a steal. Another turnover led to a wide-open 3 for Randall Jones. His next bomb from long range capped the 19-0 run with the Hornets up 50-28.

“Salisbury just turned up the heat defensively and we didn’t respond. They out-toughed us,”Wright said. “They got up on us defensively and we had a long stretch of turnovers. They prevented us from even getting into our offensive set.”

Hibriten (12-13) turned the ball over 12 times in the third quarter, and the six points the Panthers scored in the final two minutes only trimmed the lead to 54-35. Salisbury’s 27 points in the third quarter matched its output of the entire first half.

“Stephen Blanton set the tone with his defensive aggressiveness and hard, physical play,”Hornet head coach Drew Mathews said. “The rest of the guys just followed his lead. Sometimes you just have to have that one guy step up.”

Hibriten made sure to thank Blanton for ending its season, sending him to the floor with a shot to the face early in the fourth quarter. That was fine with the junior forward, though.

“It was just momentum. We got the crowd pumped up and you could see it,”Blanton said. “They started giving us cheap shots. The foul I took in the face was on purpose, the guy told me. I just laughed and pointed to the scoreboard.”

It read: Game over, Salisbury moves on.

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NOTES: In the third quarter, Blount scored seven points, Pryor six, Drye and Jones five each and Blanton four. Jones (17) and Pryor (10) were the only Hornets in double figures. … The acrobatic Brooks Bowers scored a game-high 20 points for the Panthers. Wright said the senior guard is getting serious looks from a lot of schools and likely will play at a junior college next season before making a final decision. … Coaches from Northwood in the Salisbury gym Monday night couldn’t have been less impressed with what they saw in the first half or more impressed with the second half. “Northwood is comparable to North Rowan when it comes to athletes running and jumping,”Mathews said. “We’ll have to play one of our better games to contain them on their home court.”

HIBRITEN (48) — Dilling 5, Hicks, Ogborn 5, Bowers 20, Pearson 9, Lindley 6, Barnes, Vaught, Parrish 3.

SALISBURY (65) — Jones 17, B. Blount 9, T. Johnson 4, Drye 7, J. Johnson 5, Pryor 10, Daugherty 5, Blanton 8, Speigner.

Hibriten 9 17 9 13 — 48