AUGUSTA — The Hampden girls basketball team was all business Friday night.

The No. 2 Broncos shot the lights out of the Augusta Civic Center in a Class A North quarterfinal, blowing out seventh-seeded Gardiner 69-31 to set up a regional semifinal date with Cony on Wednesday.

“We call it a business trip on the way there and party on the way back,” said Hampden senior Lucy Wiles, who led all scorers with 23 points. “I felt like right from warmups, it was just ‘three-three-three.’ It was like we were making everything.

To say it was business as usual for the Broncos (14-5) would be an understatement. Dropping down from Class AA this season, Hampden shot a whopping 70.2 percent from the floor in the win over the Tigers (8-11).

In the third quarter alone, the Broncos connected on 9 of 12 attempts from the floor to turn a 13-point game at the break into a 49-21 lead through 24 minutes.

“I’m not surprised we shot the ball well,” said Hampden head coach Nick Winchester. “But I am surprised we shot the ball that well. … You just never know who’s number is going to be called.”

Oddly enough, the Broncos missed their first two field goal tries to start the third period before rattling off four straight buckets and nine of their next 10 shots. Freshman Aubrey Shaw went 4 for 4 from beyond the 3-point arc in the second half to help provide secondary scoring behind Wiles.

“The last few days, we’ve just worked on getting a lot of shots up,” Wiles said.

Gardiner struggled to find offensive rhythm and were held to single-digits in all four quarters.

At the other end of the floor, it was entirely the opposite.

Shaw finished with 12 points, while Caitlyn Murphy and Zoe Higgs added nine apiece in the win.

“Anytime you walk on this floor, you never know how you’re going to do,” Winchester said. “I saw the start of the Cony-Brewer game, and i just didn’t want to come out flat.”

There was little need to worry for the Broncos. After starting the game by scoring 11 of the game’s first 13 points they rolled out to the early lead and never looked back.

The Tigers limited turnovers and played relatively even on the boards throughout, but they couldn’t find the same shot selection. Gardiner connected on only 29.2 percent of its attempts through three quarters.

Emilee Brown led Gardiner with eight points, while Taylor Takatsu added seven.

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