Jason Whitens of North Central, left, takes the ball to the basket while Hillman's Brandon Banks defends during a Class D quarterfinal game played at Sault Ste. Marie on Tuesday night. (Sault Evening News photo by Rob Roos)

SAULT STE. MARIE — There’s no place like The Breslin Center for Jason Whitens and Marcus Krachinski.

Whitens, Krachinski and the top-ranked North Central boys’ basketball team are headed to “The Big House” again after beating third-ranked Hillman 74-61 in Tuesday’s Class D state quarterfinal game at Sault High School.

“It feels like home,” Whitens said about The Breslin, shortly after scoring a game-high 31 points against Hillman and surpassing 2,000 in his career.

“You always want to go out on top your senior year. We’ve got two more games left, hopefully. We just have to attack this with the same enthusiasm.”

North Central (26-0) will face second-ranked Southfield Christian (21-5) at 6 p.m. Thursday at Michigan State University in East Lansing. The Eagles rolled past Fowler 64-42 in their quarterfinal.

Krachinski, who scored a season-high 18 points against Hillman, can’t wait to take the next step.

“It’s definitely a fun experience down there,” said Krachinski, who scored a season-high 18 points against the Tigers. “It’s unlike anything else.”

Playing in the semifinals is nothing new for the Jets, who’ve captured the last two Class D state championships and enter the Southfield Christian showdown with a best-in-the-nation 81-game winning streak.

North Central had to work for its trip to the semifinals.

Hillman was as good as advertised. The Tigers relied on trapping defenses and solid perimeter shooting.

Hillman led 5-3 early but played from behind the rest of the way. Still, North Central never got comfortable as the Tigers pulled within 60-54 with 2:44 left on Jared Juergens’ 3-pointer.

But Krachinski answered with a triple from the left wing at the 2:23 mark and Whitens followed with three easy baskets as the Jets went up 69-55 and snuffed out any upset hopes.

“We made our run there,” Hillman coach Eric Muszynski said. “It looked like we were rolling again, and then like they’ve done with the nation’s longest streak, they put you away.

“You just try to weather the storm as best you can. We just had too many storms that we had to try and put out.”

NC coach Adam Mercier said his team responded to Hillman’s pressure like a veteran team.

“Our seniors stepped up big,” Mercier said. “Krachinski hit a big 3 on the wing. That was big. They had a 6-0 mini-run and Marcus answered with a big 3 and Jason drove for two baskets. That’s the way to respond. You need your big guys to step up. I thought we had that in the fourth quarter.”

Brandon Banks sparked Hillman with 22 points, hitting three of the Tigers’ seven 3-pointers.

NC’s Dawson Bilski totaled 11 points and Bobby Kleiman added eight.

NC led 20-16 in a back-and-forth first quarter.

The Jets kept control with a 9-2 run to open the second quarter and 29-18 lead. But the Tigers didn’t fold and answered with six straight points before trailing 34-29 at halftime.

Muszynski said the Tigers were right where they wanted to be.

“I thought the tempo of the game favored us a little bit,” he said. “Our big thing was, ‘Let’s see how much we can pressure them,’ We felt like a lot of teams don’t do that. You look at that lineup and you are kind of hesitant to do that.”

North Central outscored Hillman 12-4 in the third quarter to take a 46-33 lead into the final eight minutes.