During the break after the opening quarter of Saturday’s championship quarterfinal of the 62nd Plano Christmas Classic between No. 4-seeded La Salle-Peru and No. 5-seeded Ottawa, a Cavaliers fan in the stands said to the person sitting next to him, “Wow, L-P was ready to go right from the tip, weren’t they?”

The comment came after the Cavaliers scored the opening 16 points of the contest, led by 18 points after one quarter. They went on to lead by 24 at halftime and 29 heading to the fourth in an eventual 63-28, running-clock victory over the Pirates.

L-P has now won the last six meetings between the programs, which played for the 256th time.

The win advances La Salle-Peru (8-2) to Monday’s 7 p.m. semifinal against two-time defending champ and top-seeded Kaneland.

Ottawa (6-3) — which played without the services of leading scorer Owen Sanders due to illness — drops to the fifth-place semifinal bracket against Timothy Christian at 3:30 p.m. Monday.

“The kids came out and executed right from the start on both offense and defense,” La Salle-Peru coach John Senica said. “Ottawa’s without Sanders, so that played a part in things today as well.

“We gave up a few open 3s and gave up a few too many second chances, but overall I thought as a team we played very well. We’re still building, continuing to work on stuff, and it’s starting to show.”

La Salle-Peru’s amazing start was fueled by 11 points from Marion Persich and 3-pointers by Erick Sotelo and Gavin Stokes.

Ottawa, which misfired on its opening five shots and turned the ball over five times, scored its only bucket of the opening period on a drive by Jack Carroll with just over a minute left.

“La Salle-Peru imposed their will on us right from the start, and we were fighting uphill the rest of the game,” Ottawa coach Mark Cooper said. “They bothered us in a lot of areas. They were clearly the better team today. I didn’t do a good enough job of having our guys ready to play.

“We’re just going to have to learn from what happened today and work on getting better as we move forward.”

Persich, who finished with a game-high 25 points (10-of-13 field goals), four rebounds and a pair of assists, netted 10 points in the third, while Jameson Hill scored five of his eight points in the quarter, including a steal turned two-handed dunk.

Sotelo also finished with eight points and six rebounds for L-P, which made good on 25-of-44 (57%) from the floor, 7-of-11 from beyond the arc, and held a 28-19 advantage in rebounds.

Ottawa, which finished 10-of-47 (21%) from the floor, was led by Carroll’s six points, while Colt Bryson (three rebounds, two assists, three steals), George Shumway and Lucas Farabaugh all posted five points.

Senica said he feels his team has played well in the opening two games of the tournament and hopes to see that trend continue against the Knights on Monday.

“Kaneland has some excellent basketball players,” Senica said. “That said, I told the guys we need to come here Monday, play competitive basketball, hang close and then see what happens.”