DETROIT >> KLAA East champion Wayne Memorial proved too much for Farmington Tuesday night, beating the Falcons 89-45 in a D1 regional semifinal.

The end result was far more lopsided than the initial few minutes would indicate. The Falcons traded early jabs and hung with the Zebras (22-3), whose only loss this calendar year was a 66-64 defeat to Novi in the KLAA Championship on Feb. 21.

However, the seven-point deficit after the first quarter, despite hovering below 10 for the first several minutes of the second, would steadily bloom. After reaching double-digits, the Zebras put Farmington in their rearview mirror by 20 points with two free throws by junior Jaylohn Allen with 1:35 remaining in the opening half.

It didn’t help that Farmington knocked down just nine of its 17 free-throw attempts before the interval.

“Truth be told, I felt we outplayed them in the first quarter,” Falcons head coach Byron Johnson said. “Momentum was big for our kids. Our youth showed today. We didn’t make our layups and free throws early, and once we were down, it was just hard for us to get back into it.”

It didn’t get any easier from there for Farmington. Though its 18-point output in the third quarter was better than the seven they scored in the second, the Falcons remained unable to slow a Wayne offense that came in averaging 72.4 points and featuring several Division 1 college recruits, including Allen and fellow junior Carlos Medlock.

The free-throw shooting got better after intermission (11 of 13) for Farmington, but Wayne only continued to pour it on as the fourth quarter went on.

“They’ve been top-10 all year, they have a good program and their coach does a great job,” Johnson said. “Their leadership showed, and hats off to them, they executed their game plan better than we were able to execute ours.”

Medlock poured in 24 points and Allen had 13, while Zebras senior Jalahn McClellan knocked down four 3-pointers and finished with 14.

Anthony Bailey led the Falcons with 14 points. Fellow junior Daniel Beard ended with nine, and senior teammate Trey Whitfield had eight.

Despite transfer attrition, Farmington (19-6) increased its win total by seven from last season, including last Friday’s 55-51 district championship victory over Livonia Stevenson. They also finished in the upper-third of the OAA White standings, and could be the league favorites next season with just one of its starters (Whitfield) graduating.

“Our sophomores became juniors and our juniors became seniors throughout the year,” Johnson said. “(Winning almost 20 games and a district) really just proved to other people what we felt the whole time we were capable of. This is what we thought we could do at the beginning of the year, and now everybody else is just catching up to where we are.”