Staff photo / Preston Byers. Ursuline freshman guard Jaylen Gunther puts up a floater in the lane in the district semifinal on Tuesday against Streetsboro at Warren G. Harding.

WARREN — “You think it’s over?” Ursuline boys basketball head coach Keith Gunther rhetorically asked his starters with five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of the Irish’s district semifinal game Wednesday against Streetsboro. Gunther was yelling at his team, which led by 20 at that moment, and sent his players back on to the floor to close out the game like a championship team.

The Irish responded to their coach’s challenge, stretching their lead to nearly 30 in a one-sided, fast-paced 64-35 victory over the Rockets to advance to the Division II, Northeast 1 district final Saturday at Warren G. Harding High School.

Gunther, in his 21st season as Ursuline head coach, knows all too well that a lead, even one as large as 20, isn’t as safe as it may seem.

“You can’t let up. In a 20-point game, you hit two or three threes and get an offensive rebound, a putback, now it’s a 10-point game,” Gunther said. “And they don’t tighten up, we tighten up. And that’s what you don’t want. So that’s why I called the timeout and got into them. And then we got to lead right back up because we zeroed in and focused up.”

Other than the brief lull in the fourth that prompted Gunther’s timeout, Ursuline did not let Streetsboro breathe from the opening tip. The Irish utilized a press and traps to force the Rockets into turnovers or quick shots, either of which were just fine for Gunther and the Irish.

“My fear was, a lot of their scores are lower-scoring games, and they’ll move the ball five, seven, eight passes — I did not want that to happen,” Gunther said. “I wanted them, even if they got a couple easy buckets, to try and get into an uptempo game with us. I wanted them moving the ball, one of them shooting it, because we feel like in a slowed-down game, that’s hard for our kids to play that way, so we pressed. They got a couple easy buckets and got some layups. They got some wide-open looks, which played into what we wanted them to do.”

Gunther’s plan worked perfectly, as Ursuline jumped out to a 13-2 lead and held a double-digit advantage for the final 25 minutes of the game.

Ursuline senior Jaden Payne proved to be invaluable on both ends, as the Irish center scored a game-high 26 points and affected the game greatly on defense and the glass.

“He meant pretty much everything to that win,” Gunther said. “When you got a guy who can score the ball on the block consistently, who’s tough, gritty, can block shots, can rebound the ball, it kind of opens it up for everybody else and changes the game. And as big as he is, he can guard out on the floor.”

Streetsboro, while having pretty much no answer for Payne, managed to snag numerous offensive rebounds, but the Rockets failed to convert on many of their second-chance opportunities.

Streetsboro head coach Nick Marcini said he suspected Gunther to deploy a strategy to speed up his Rockets, who won their sectional semifinal by a score of 26-23.

“Obviously, we had a feeling that’s something they were gonna do, and we worked on it for two days,” Marcini said. “I thought that after the initial shock and awe there, I thought we’d handle it a little better, but [we were] just having problems finishing at the backend and missing some open shots.”

Aside from Payne, senior Geno Lucente added 13 points, while freshmen Jaylen Gunther and Noah Bell each knocked down a pair of three-pointers and contributed 12 and 10 points, respectively. Jackson Gula led Streetsboro with eight points.

Ursuline now awaits its district championship opponent; the Irish will play either Edgewood or Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin at Harding on Saturday at 4 p.m.. Those two teams play in the second semifinal on Thursday at Harding.

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