The No. 3 Bishop Hendricken basketball team punched its ticket to the Division I Semifinals after beating Westerly in the prelims and East Providence in the quarters.

The Hawks took down Westerly 68-50 at home last week. Hendricken took an early lead, thanks to James Caldarella going off for 11 points in the first quarter. The Hawks used that momentum to take a 14-point advantage into the half and never let the Bulldogs back in throughout the second as they rolled to the win.

“We put a lot of emphasis on starting the game strong with a lot of energy,” said Caldarella, who is not concerned about the outside voices deeming the Hawks as an underdog in the DI bracket. “There’s internal motivation, motivation within ourselves. We’re not looking outside at all the noise, we’re just focused on ourselves and trying to get better every day.”

Caldarella led the way with 18 points while freshman Michael D’Ambra made his presence felt with 13 points in his playoff debut.

“Going out there, the attitude was just to play my game. If I can do that, I can help us win. My mindset was just to play my hardest and do my best to help us win,” said D’Ambra. “We have guys that can come in and make an impact. At this point in the season, that’s huge. We just have to want it. We’re not looking at it like we’re underdogs, we just want to go out there and play basketball and do the best we can do.”

The Hawks then hosted the Townies on Tuesday night and ran away with a 68-39 win, reminding the state that the reigning champions are still a contender.

Caldarella led the way with 22 points, including 18 in the second half. D’Ambra scored four 3-pointers to finish with 15 while Devin Lynch added 13.

Next up for Hendricken is top-seeded Classical, who dealt the Hawks a 62-41 loss in the regular season.

After a few tough early season defeats as the team recovered from losing all five of its starters from last year’s championship roster, Caldarella feels that the group has turned a corner and is ready to use last year’s run as an example of what it takes to get the job done.

“We’ve improved with that, closing games out. Earlier in the season we allowed teams to creep back in, but going into the playoffs, we’re getting better at closing out games,” Caldarella said. “Just learning from the guys last year, you just have to take it one game at a time. In the playoffs, records don’t matter. You have to win the next 32 minutes.”