Salem's Evan Jones battles for possession with South Range's Tristan Toy on Friday. (Special to the Journal/Gary Leininger)

SALEM — With the start of the boys basketball postseason just a week away, South Range looks like its prepared for another deep tourney run as the Raiders jumped out to a 20-2 lead and never looked back in posting a 69-40 regular-season win over Salem at John A. Cabas Gymnasium Friday night.

With the Raiders hitting eight three-pointers in the first half and 13 in the game, South Range raced out to a 20-2 advantage in the first five minutes of the game and controlled the remainder of the contest with its torrid shooting from the perimeter.

“I would think that (the 13 threes) is probably double of what they’ve had in most of their games this year,” said Salem coach Jeff Andres. “But hats off to them, they played well, they’re deep and they’re aggressive and they got us.”

“When you come out and shoot the ball like that you hope it’s going to be your night,” said South Range coach Pat Carden, “We just kind of kept it going throughout the night. It seemed like we really found our shot tonight.”

With the win, South Range, which dropped to Division V this winter after reaching the D3 district final last season,, improved to 17-4.

“We’re hopeful, we kind of took a path (in the tournament) where we thought we could get there but we’ve got to play hard every night because you never know what’s going to happen,” said Carden. “It’s basketball and the kids have to show up every night and do what we do.”

With the setback, Salem, which will compete in the D4 tourney this season, is now 6-15.

With 6-foot-3 senior guard Luke Rowan torching the nets for a game-high 29 points, including seven of the Raiders’ 13 treys, South Range took quarter-stop leads of 23-7, 37-25 and 54-32.

Carden cleared his bench with 4:22 left with South Range holding a 33-point (67-34) advantage.

“We came into thinking Luke (Rohan) could shoot it and the rest of them could but against us there was no pressure,” said Andres. “They shot it really well.”

“Luke’s kind of our motor,” said Carden. “We go as he goes and when he’s playing his best basketball we’re just a much better team. He can really shoot it and he had a great night shooting tonight.”

Complementing Rowan’s sharpshooting performance from long range were guard Nate Lewis with 13 points, including a pair of triples, while Tristan Toy (two threes) and Graham Heikkinen added 10 points apiece.

Pacing the Quakers was center Evan Jones who had 11 points, while teammate Ty Manion added seven points and Ben Severe and Colin Riesen added six points apiece.

Despite being down early, Salem came back to get within 10 points (40-30) on a layup by Jones with 3:44 remaining in the third quarter.

But South Range impressively answered by outscoring the Quakers 14-2 the remainder of the frame to lead 54-32 after three.

The Raiders took their largest lead at 35 points (69-34), which began a running clock with 3:30 remaining in the game.

“I thought our kids battled back, we would get a board and a bucket and another board and bucket and got it (the deficit) down to 10 there and then it just kind of got away from us down the stretch,” said Andres.

Game notes

• South Range won the junior varsity game over the Quakers, 52-47. Jason Vorshak and Tommy Valentine led the Raiders with 13 points each. Braydon Van Dyne and Cameron Martin paced the Quakers with 12 points apiece and Jack Andres added 10 markers.

• Salem will turn around and host the Hubbard Eagles in their regular-season finale Saturday afternoon. The JV game will start at 1 p.m. with the varsity to follow. The game has been switched to an afternoon contest due to the Salem girls basketball team hosting the Struthers Wildcats in a D4 sectional championship game at 7 p.m. Saturday,

“They (the Eagles) are a quality opponent,” said Andres of Hubbard. “They’ve got some kids that play hard and they’re going to come down here and compete with a similar style to South Range. But we are worried about ourselves right now. Hopefully, we can lick our wounds and come back and fight, and they will.”

• South Range will host the Heartland Christian Lions in their regular-season finale Tuesday night.

SR: 23-14-17-15–69

SA: 7-18- 7- 8–40

SOUTH RANGE SCORING: Jimmy Powell 1-0-2, Tristan Toy 4-0-10, DaHaeven Cooperwood 0-0-0, Nate Lewis 5-1-13, Jack Carey 0-0-0, Michael Garwacki 0-0-0, Gaven Nagy 0-0-0, Jason Vorshak 0-0-0, Luke Rohan 9-1-29, Gavin Hiscox 0-0-0, Tommy Titus 1-0-3, Nick Toy 1-0-2, Graham Heikkinen 3-3-10. TEAM TOTALS: 24, 5-7: 69.

SALEM SCORING: Evan Jones 5-1-11, Colin Riesen 3-0-6, Andrew Beck 0-0-0, Deontay Steele 0-0-0, Jack Andres 1-0-2, Ty Manion 3-0-7, Luke Davis 0-0-0, Chase Valerio 2-0-5, Gavin Colbert 0-0-0, Ben Severe 2-1-6, Steve Landfried 1-0-3. TEAM TOTALS: 17, 2-3: 40.

Three-point goals: South Range 13 (Luke Rohan 7, Tristan Toy 2, Nate Lewis 2, Graham Heikkinen 1, Tommy Titus 1), Salem 4 (Ty Manion 1, Chase Valerio 1, Ben Severe 1, Steve Landfried 1).

Total fouls: South Range 5, Salem 10. Fouled out: none.