BLADENBORO — The first time the Fairmont boys basketball team played at West Bladen this season, the result was a 31-point defeat.

The Golden Tornadoes’ return trip turned out more than a little bit differently.

Fairmont’s defense led the way in a 59-38 win over the Knights — a 52-point turnaround from the Jan. 26 game — in Friday’s second-round NCHSAA 2A state playoff contest, eliminating its Southeastern Athletic Conference foe by handing West Bladen its first home loss of the season.

“Defense — that’s where it starts at with us is on the defensive end, taking pride in making stops, and after we make those stops we prove it on the other end with a great offensive possession,” Fairmont coach Montrell McNair said. “I felt like we did a better job of that tonight, playing on both sides.”

Fairmont (21-5), the No. 14 seed in the 2A East Region, advances to the third round for the first time since a fourth-round run in 2018; the Golden Tornadoes will play at No. 6 Heide Trask on Tuesday after the Titans defeated No. 11 Martin County 70-67 Friday.

In front of a raucous crowd inside a Ken F. Cross Gymnasium that was so full that fans were turned away, Fairmont made all the effort plays needed to make a difference, finding energy from a crowd that was primarily rooting for the opposition.

“Coming in, we knew it was a big game,” said Landon Cummings, who scored 17 points to lead Fairmont. “We love playing in games like this; packed games. We love when everybody’s against us, and that’s how it was tonight, everybody was against us and we’ve got to prove them all wrong.”

No. 3 West Bladen (24-2) was held to 11 points or less in all four quarters by the Golden Tornadoes defense.

“(We were) staying locked in, staying focused and playing solid defense,” Fairmont guard Issac McKellar said.

Fairmont led 34-28 at the end of the third quarter. The game was officiated with a tighter whistle in the fourth — and, once the Golden Tornadoes extended their lead, West Bladen began to foul in an effort to extend the game — leading to 34 combined fourth-quarter field goal attempts, 24 of which were by the Golden Tornadoes. Fairmont was only 13-for-24 at the stripe in the period, but while the success rate wasn’t tremendous the volume of chances meant that the Golden Tornadoes could pull away on the scoreboard.

“Coach (Travis) Pait did what he had to do to extend the game out and put us on the line,” McNair said. “We didn’t shoot it well, and that was a pretty good strategy; if the game would’ve been a little bit closer, it probably would’ve worked, the way we were shooting, we didn’t have our best game at the free-throw line.”

Fairmont stretched its lead to 40-30 with 4:32 left after Cummings, McKellar and Tyrek Thompson each made baskets. Only six of Fairmont’s last 19 points came by way of a made basket, with the rest at the stripe; Naishon Davis and Gabriel Washington each made four free throws to lead the way.

The Golden Tornadoes took a 48-32 lead after a Washington foul shot with 2:44 left. West Bladen cut the lead to 49-35 after Chase Williams hit a free throw and, moments later, made a dunk for the Knights’ first made field goal of the fourth quarter at the 2:22 mark, but Fairmont finished on a 10-3 run.

Behind Cummings, McKellar scored 11 points, Washington had 10 and Xavier Johnson added eight for Fairmont.

Williams led West Bladen with 20 points and Hezekiah Adams scored eight.

West Bladen led 7-2 before Fairmont finished the first quarter with a 7-2 spurt to take a 9-8 lead at the end of the frame. Cummings scored seven of the team’s nine first-quarter points.

“It was important, because the first round (of the playoffs) I didn’t really do too good, so I had to get my confidence back up,” Cummings said. “I appreciate my team for believing in me and they kept finding me when I was open.”

“That was big for us, because we were struggling a little bit,” McNair said. “Those shots he hit at those times he hit them were big shots, because they went up on us 7-2 and he hit the 3 to tie it up. We were struggling a little bit offensively, so they were big.”

The teams largely traded baskets in the second quarter; Johnson and Cummings each hit 3s to give Fairmont a 17-12 lead with 5:08 left in the half, while Williams scored seven points in the period for West Bladen. Fairmont led 21-17 at halftime.

“I was just trying to tell those guys to stay focused and stay locked in, because that’s only a four-point lead, that’s two possessions, and they can take the lead,” McNair said. “I was trying to keep our guys focused and continuing to run the sets we needed to run, to keep the separation and keep the score exactly where it was at. Going down the stretch we did a much better job of executing. That’s what did it, defense and execution.”

The teams alternated the first six made baskets of the second half before West Bladen got five straight points from Williams to take a 28-27 lead with 1:56 left in the third. But Fairmont ended the third with a 7-0 run, including a Johnson triple and baskets by McKellar and Davis, to take its six-point lead to the fourth.

“(We were) just staying locked in together,” Cummings said. “They’d go on their little run, we’d go on our little run, but we know basketball is a game of runs, so we had to go on a big run like we did to close it out.”

Fairmont and West Bladen shared the Southeastern Athletic Conference regular-season championship; West Bladen won the first head-to-head meeting 66-35 on Jan. 26 in Bladenboro and Fairmont beat the Knights 47-40 at home on Feb. 13, the Knights’ only loss before Friday.

The Golden Tornadoes now turn their attention to Tuesday’s third-round game at Heide Trask, which will be about a 1 1/2-hour trip from Fairmont.

“I just think we need to keep playing the way we’re playing, with the intensity we’re playing with, and playing together as a team and keep the execution coming,” McNair said.