The Redwood High boys basketball team was not thrilled with a five-point victory against Archie Williams to close out the regular season last week.

The Giants, MCAL regular season champs, knew they could do better.

Redwood (18-6) did better in a league playoff semifinal against the fourth-seed Peregrine Falcons on Wednesday night in Larkspur.

Much better.

Even with leading scorer Semetri Carr held to 12 points, the Giants blitzed Archie Williams 63-43 to advance to their fourth consecutive MCAL title tilt and third in a row against two-time defending league champion Branson. The Giants and Bulls will clash at 7 p.m. Friday at the Redwood High gym.“Last game against these guys it was a little too close,” said Redwood shooting guard Noah Tanaka, who knocked down five three-pointers and garnered game-high scoring honors with 17. “We thought we needed to come out with more fire and intensity tonight.”

Redwood wasn’t exactly burning up the building in the opening quarter.

The Giants, however, grabbed an early 6-1 lead and never trailed.

“We have guys on this team who can come up big at any time,” Redwood coach Jay DeMaestri. “We’re always telling the other guys to shoot, shoot, shoot. We’re much more than a one-man team.”

On Wednesday, four Giants reached double-figures in scoring.

“I’ve known all year how well Tanaka can shoot,” said Carr, who had a game-high 12 rebounds. “I was not surprised at all by his scoring.”

After slogging through an opening quarter with an 8-5 advantage, the Redwood shooters came to life in the second period.

Carr started the long-range barrage in the first minute by draining a 3-pointer. Before it was over, Tanaka canned two threes and teammate Brennan Woodley (14 points) tacked on another pair of 3-pointers as Redwood secured a 26-14 halftime advantage.

“Everybody started contributing and it kind of spread through the team,” Tanaka said. “We took a 12-point lead at halftime and then we just had to keep on going, keep on pounding away.”

Redwood continued its hot shooting in the third period. Tanaka buried two more threes and Harry White (10 points) joined the party with an additional pair of three-pointers.

The Falcons countered with a couple of long-range bombs from Dante Stallone but never got closer than 12 the rest of the way.

By the time Woodley knocked down his third three-pointer late in the third quarter, the writing was on the wall. The Giants were not cooling off.

DeMaestri was especially satisfied by Tanaka’s big scoring night.

“Noah had a tough start to the season fighting through injuries and such,” DeMaestri said. “But we all knew his day would come. The fans might have been surprised by his shooting tonight but the guys on this team were not. We see him doing that every day in practice.”

Redwood’s big post Simon Leonard was forced to the bench early in the first half because of foul trouble.

But even with Leonard missing many minutes, the Giants dominated the boards, out-rebounding Archie Williams 33-16.

Branson rolls

NJ Gray scored half of his game-high 28 points in a big third quarter to power the second-seeded Branson School past No. 3 Marin Catholic 71-48 in Wednesday’s MCAL semifinal, hosted by Terra Linda.

The Bulls opened the game with a 7-0 run, and never let up on the gas.

Bulls sophomore Heath French had a 13-point night, which ended early. French played an emotional game, and in the fourth quarter he slammed home a dunk, but picked up his second technical foul of the game when he was called for hanging on the rim and was ejected. Tyler Wells hit four 3-pointers for 12 points and Chase Robertson poured in 10 points for Branson (17-9).

The Wildcats’ offense ran through Joe Hammond, who scored a team-high 14 plays and kept Marin Catholic (14-13) within striking distance throughout the first half. Henry Dibble added nine points and Oliver Myers had eight.

San Domenico advances

Gavin Early hit a pair of clutch free throws to help San Domenico survive a comeback bid by Urban and advance to the Bay Counties League West title game following a 52-48 victory on Wednesday night.

Omar Williams scored a team-high 16 points and Kris Jakstas added 12 points for the Panthers. The duo combined to hit eight 3-pointers. Early had 10 points, 11 rebounds, and five assists for San Domenico (20-6), which breached the 20-win mark for the third consecutive season.

San Domenico faces University in the title game, which is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. Saturday at Marin Catholic.