With the North Medford boys basketball team surviving an up-and-down regular season, the first round of the Class 6A playoffs offered no safe haven in the form of top-seeded Central Catholic.

The Rams lived up to their billing Tuesday night, opening a 13-point lead through one quarter and ending the Black Tornado’s season with an 84-56 triumph on their home court.

As the final team to reach the playoffs, No. 32 North Medford (11-15) showed a good amount of grit and an unwillingness to back down to the Rams (23-3) by fighting to the final buzzer.

Traeger Healy led the visiting Black Tornado with 12 points and four rebounds, while Easton Curtis added 11 points on 3-of-5 shooting on 3-pointers.

“I thought we competed as long as we could for all 32 minutes,” said North Medford basketball coach Scott Plankenhorn. “It’s easy to stop playing when you get down that much, but I felt like we kept fighting and playing hard.”

The best stretch came in the third quarter after Houston Klug knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers and his teammates followed suit with three more from beyond the arc to make it 64-41. Then, North Medford opened the fourth quarter with two more 3-pointers to cut into the lead more.

North Medford shooting 8-of-13 (61.5%) from beyond the arc in the second half was most definitely a deviation after it went 2-of-12 (16%) in the opening 16 minutes.

“We finally got into some offense and found something that actually worked for us,” said Plankenhorn. “We did make some shots, but that was us being able to get into something and guys cutting hard and finding each other.”

The low 3-point shooting in the first half was also a result of Central Catholic showing its clear advantage in length and athleticism.

The Rams used an aggressive man-to-man defense to force tough entry passes and kept penetration on the perimeter to a minimum. Forward Duce Paschal had four of his team’s 10 steals to go with 11 points.

Rebounding was another area that the Rams dominated, with 15 offensive rebounds creating extra possessions to wear down the Tornado defense.

“That pressure got to us, we weren’t responding really well to the sets that normally work for us,” said Plankenhorn. “Between turnovers and offensive glass in that first half, those were our biggest problems.”

“They had nine offensive boards in the first half,” he added. “When you keep them off the glass, it doesn’t fix the whole problem, but it fixes a big problem when you keep them off the offensive glass.”

Central Catholic was led by Marley Zeller’s 27 points. The 6-foot-5 senior stepped up in the absence of leading-scorer Isaac Carr, who sat out the playoff game with a leg injury.

Zamir Paschal added 15 points and two steals for the Rams.

North Medford’s Miguel Torres and Klug registered nine points apiece, while fellow senior Andrew Plankenhorn scored five points.

Black Tornado junior Rohan Aulakh added nine points and three steals.

THURSTON 67, EAGLE POINT 34: At Springfield, Peyton Pierce scored a team-high 17 points for Eagle Point in the Midwestern loss to end the season.

The Eagles (11-13, 3-9 MWL) also got eight points from Connor Neyt, along with seven points from Easton Raber.

Nate Stiffler scored a game-high 21 points for the Colts (17-7, 10-2) and Luke Newell added 16 points.

Girls BasketballEAGLE POINT 50, THURSTON 40: At Springfield, Kady Lindstrom scored 11 of her 17 points in the first half to lead Eagle Point to the Midwestern League road victory.

Jill Garlitz added 11 points and Thianna Deng-Gomez had seven points for the Eagles (11-13, 5-7 MWL).

Thurston (7-17, 3-9) was led by Bailey Tovey’s 13 points, and Bridgette Nault scored 12.