PORT HURON >> When Arts & Technology Academy of Pontiac secured its first regional championship last week by beating Royal Oak Shrine, the accomplishment was played down with bigger goals in mind.

What about a trip to the Breslin Center?

That’s where the Lions are headed after they handily defeated Flint New Standard Academy 74-44 in Tuesday evening’s D3 quarterfinal at SC4 Fieldhouse.

“We all know that the main goal is a state championship,” said ATAP senior Teyshaun Hicks, who scored a game-high 18 points. “Regional, district (championships), yeah, we’re glad to have them. But the main goal is a state championship.”

“It feels good to be there with my team, man, it feels great,” Lions sophomore De’Vontae Grandison said. “I’ve never been there. But with these guys? We’re gonna win it all, watch.”

Clearly, the Lions have been influenced by their head coach, Orlando Lovejoy. But if you were one of them, you’d find it hard not to buy into his view on the “lesser” goals his team has already checked off when you hear his aspirations for the future.

“No, absolutely not,” Coach Lovejoy said when asked if he was anymore enthused with Tuesday’s victory in comparison to the regional title ATAP won five days before. “It’s Breslin, next year, next year, next year, next year. Five in a row.”

One trip down, four to go.

It would take a full set of fingers and toes to count the number of steals the Lions came up with in the win, and plenty of them led to easy opportunities.

“I think I counted 14,” Coach Lovejoy said. “We wanted to warm up extremely hard so that if any challenge was going to come, we were going to be ready. I felt like that played a huge role. It seemed like we came out more ready than the other team did. We just had more intensity.”

Jhirnea Harris had eight points for the Warriors (16-9) in the opening quarter, but even then they were outscored by ATAP 23-14, including nine in that first period by Teyshaun Hicks.

The Lions led by 15 at halftime, and coming out of the break, Grandison had the hot hand.

He had nine of his 16 points in the third, and his bucket 3:30 into the second half extended the advantage to 22.

That lead reached nearly 30 points for ATAP late in the third quarter, and by the time the last eight minutes rolled around, it turned into an exercise in keep away. Sherrod Magee Jr. finally gave the Lions a 30-point lead with free throws as just over 1:30 remained on the clock.

Harris, who scored 20 for the Warriors in their regional championship victory over Harbor Beach, still finished with a team-high 17 against ATAP, but Coach Lovejoy spoke about trying to minimize his impact on the interior. “One of the main things we wanted to do was to pull (Harris) from the paint so that he would have no option to rebound. Our main goal was to pull him away from the rim, or just make him exert more energy.”

While no other player from New Standard Academy (also dubbed Flint Elite) reached double-digit scoring, freshman Lewis Lovejoy (15 points, 9-of-11 free-throw attempts) and senior Terrance Hicks (16 points) rounded out the Lions’ quartet who filled that criteria.

Ishpeming Westwood will look to do what no D3 team has done yet this season to the Lions when the teams meet in Thursday’s state semifinal in East Lansing. ATAP ran the table in the Charter School Conference — including a win in the conference tourney over Old Redford, a top-10 team in D2 — and its only loss this year came to Hamtramck, a D1 team that won 15 games.

Tip-off for Thursday’s game between ATAP and Westwood is set for noon.