WESTFIELD — No. 4 Westfield had plenty of reasons to smile at halftime on Friday night with a 12-point halftime lead over No. 5 Bennett.

In the end, the Wolverines needed just a few more smile-worthy moments to move ahead in their Section VI Class C-2 playoff bracket after a 70-65 quarterfinal loss to the Tigers.

Westfield jumped ahead 7-2 in the first three minutes of play on a 3-pointer by Nathan Culbreth and led 9-2 before Bennett answered with an 8-0 run to take a one-point lead. The Tigers led 14-13 with three minutes left in the first quarter, but Westfield scored the period’s final four points, capped off by a stunning bounce pass by Culbreth to Dylan Scriven for a layup with 1:17 left.

“Early on, offensively we were fine. Defensively, we were too close,” Westfield coach Bob North said. “We played way too tight and they got a lot of easy layups early.”

Bennett tied the game at 17 early in the second quarter on a rim-rattling dunk from Lamont Pulliam off of a steal in the backcourt. Westfield’s Evan Hauser answered the other way with a quick layup, but Pulliam slammed it home once again on the next possession to tie it up at 19-all. Halfway through the second quarter, Westfield held a slim one-point lead.

Over the next three minutes, Westfield played one of its best stretches of basketball of the season. Jayvee call-up Darien Swanson drilled a 3-pointer with 3:31 left in the half to put Westfield up by four, then Culbreth drilled a 3-pointer of his own with just under three minutes left in the half to balloon the lead to eight points. When it was all said and done, a 13-0 run eventually gave the Wolverines a 40-28 halftime lead.

“I told (my team), we have 40 points at the half. If we score another 40 points, we’re going to be smiling,” North said.

As stellar of a run as Westfield closed the first half on, Bennett had an even more impressive answer. In the first half of the third quarter, Bennett went on a 14-2 run, punctuated by a thundering alley-oop slam by Pulliam in transition to tie the game at 42-apiece. Both teams traded blows evenly the rest of the third quarter, with the score locked at 50-50 after the third frame.

“We came out in the third quarter and we just lost our heads. They tried to speed us up, we let them speed us up. Instead of throwing it to the open guy, we tried to throw it to covered guys,” said North. “When we take care of the ball we win, when we don’t, we lose.”

The teams stayed within single digits the entire fourth quarter. Bennett had a five-point lead, 65-60, with 57.3 seconds left as Westfield’s Ryan Jafarjian stepped to the free throw line to shoot a pair. Jafarjian missed the first but made the second, to cut the deficit to four. The visiting Tigers then missed both free throws on their next possession, and on the rebound, they fouled Westfield’s Andrew Baribeau to send the junior big man to the line for a one-and-one. Baribeau calmly made both free throws to bring Westfield within two points.

Bennett made a pair of free throws on its next possession for a four-point lead with under 40 seconds left, but Westfield had a pair of opportunities to cut the deficit to just one. Hauser had an open look from behind the arc bounce off the rim, then after Westfield got the offensive rebound and found Hauser again, his redemption shot rolled around the rim and out.

“Normally that’s the guy we want to get the ball to,” North said of Hauser. “He missed one, we got the ball right back to him and he got another good look. If one of those falls, we’re down one, we’re smiling. Sometimes shots fall, sometimes they don’t.”

Bennett extended the lead to five points on the next possession and closed the game out from the free throw line.

“We just didn’t really execute at the end of the game,” North said. “I asked them to do three things — play hard, play smart and play together. We played hard, at times we played together, but there were times we did things I just didn’t understand.”

NOTES: Culbreth and Baribeau each had 14 points while Jafarjian added 11. … Baribeau also had eight rebounds. … The Wolverines were 3 of 20 from 3-point range. … Pulliam led Bennett with 28 points, Austin Grimes had 16, Davon Scott had 13 and Jiheed Robinson had 11.