With one big victory, Warren Central’s boys’ basketball program established a new normal.

The Vikings used a strong defensive and rebounding effort to pull away from Hernando in the second half Tuesday, and went on to win 58-37 in the first round of the MHSAA Class 6A state tournament.

After not winning a game in the state tournament for 42 years, the Vikings (22-6) have now done it twice in a row. They advanced to play Starkville (21-3) in the second round on Saturday, with a chance to avenge a lopsided loss from earlier in the season and move on to the Jackson portion of the tournament.

Tip off is 7 p.m. Saturday at Starkville.

“That’s 22 wins on the season. The worst we’re going to finish is seven losses. For a program that we’ve been working and toiling to get to this point, it’s huge,” Warren Central coach Bruce Robinson said. “We want to be known as a solid basketball program. Those kids in that locker room have bought into it a lot. I think it’s tremendous for the program considering where we came from to where we are now. When we get to around banquet time, it’ll really sink in what we’ve done.”

Getting to Jackson will not be easy for the Vikings. Starkville routed them 60-27 on their home floor on Jan. 20 and has not lost since November. The Yellowjackets won the Division 3-6A championship and 18 consecutive games.

Warren Central, however, has won six of its eight games since facing Starkville.

“Columbus and Starkville are the two best teams in the North, bar none. Playing that game in the Red Carpet Classic, we wanted to see if we could compete with them or even beat them at home. It was very humbling,” Robinson said.

In their first-round game, the Vikings eventually wore down and put away Hernando (8-18) after a mediocre first half. Warren Central led by two points at halftime, but stretched that to 13 by the end of the third quarter.

Warren Central closed the third quarter with an 8-0 run and then scored the first basket of the fourth to take a 38-23 lead. A basket by Hernando’s A.J. Jackson ended a nearly four-minute scoring drought for the Tigers with about six minutes to play, and then they only scored two more points over the next four minutes.

After almost every miss, the Vikings were able to close out the possession with a defensive rebound that allowed them to come back the other way and slowly add to the lead.

“That’s always a key. You’ve got to rebound hard,” Robinson said. “We did lock up those offensive rebounds, and then we got some runouts, too. We wanted consecutive stops and consecutive baskets. In the first half we’d stretch it to five or six and do some crazy stuff and let them get back in it. At the end of the day, fatigue was a factor for them.”

Chavis Smith scored 11 straight points for the Vikings, capped by a four-point play where he was fouled while making a 3-pointer from the right wing. Smith finished with 16 points in the game, and his personal run extended the lead to 50-29 with 2:41 remaining.

“I got hot,” Smith said with a grin.

In all, the Vikings had a 14-0 run finished off by Jalen Allen’s layup off a press break that made it 52-29 with two minutes to go. Robinson cleared his bench in the final 90 seconds.

Malik Wallace led Hernando with 14 points. Eleven of those came in the first half. De’Arius Henyard scored 11 for Warren Central and Chris Early added eight.

“I think we played better defense, but you can watch a team as the game gets late and see their conditioning step in. Some of those jump shots they were making early, they weren’t falling. We had a deeper bench and that wore on them,” Robinson said.