Photo courtesy of The Savannah Morning News Savannah High guard Alex Reid slashes to the basket past Lowndes’ Josh Cooper Saturday during the first round of the Class AAAAA tournament.

The game was closer than necessary, but Savannah High School boy’s basketball coach Tim Jordan wasn’t about to complain.

“When you get to the state playoffs, the key is to win and advance,” Jordan said shortly after the host Blue Jackets held on Saturday for a 68-63 win over Lowndes at the Ron Love Athletic Center.

“All you have to do is win by one point,” Jordan said. “If we had made our fouls shots down the stretch, the game would not have been this close.”

The victory advanced Savannah High (23-6) into the second round of the GHSA Class AAAAA state playoffs. The Blue Jackets will play the winner of Stephenson/Campbell winner on Wednesday night at home.

The Vikings’ season is over. Lowndes finished with a 14-13 record.

Alex Reid led the Blue Jackets with 15 points, and he was joined in double figures by James Sinclair and Karon Freeman with 12 each and Arkeem Sheppard with 10.

While Jordan was pleased with the scoring balance, he reserved his kindest words for Naquan Chisholm, who came off the bench to score a season-high eight points, all in the second quarter when the Blue Jackets overcame a slow start to bolt to a 37-22 halftime lead.

“Naquan came in at the end of the first half when they had cut the lead to one (22-21) and hit some big shots,” Jordan said. “He had a couple of baskets and hit a pair of free throws. … Those were big points for us.

“I tell them that at this time of year we need everyone to contribute,” Jordan continued. “When you look at our box, you see a lot of guys with eight, nine and 10 points. We don’t have a megastar, a bunch of guys that are going to go out and score 20 or 30 points.”

Lowndes was 30 minutes late arriving because of traffic problems and taking Rodney Jefferson to the hospital after he had a seizure during a shootaround at Bradwell Institute.

“We were a little flat at the start,” Lowndes coach Kingston Clark said. “We saw a bad motorcycle accident, then had the kid have the seizure. After that, we got to Savannah and got stuck on Abercorn Street coming into town.

“It’s no excuse because Savannah High is a good team,” Clark said, “but we were bothered a little mentally at the start of the game.”

Jefferson arrived at the Love Center shortly before the end of the game, and the Clark said he was fine.

The Vikings hit a pair of 3-pointers to start the game and were up 6-2 when the Jackets scored 11 straight points for a 13-6 first-period lead.

Lowndes, however, battled back to 22-21 with less than three minutes on the clock when Chisholm entered the game.

The 5-foot-8 junior scored his points in a 90-second span, including a trey as the half ended.

That capped a 15-1 run that gave the Blue Jackets a seemingly comfortable 15-point lead, which they pushed to 47-27 on a layup by Jontay Mitchell following a steal by Sinclair.

Lowndes, though, refused to give up.

Behind the play of point guard LaVonta Jones, who had a game-high 19 points, the Vikings began to whittle into the deficit and finally got it under double digits with a six-point run that made it 61-55 at the 2:23 mark.

The Blue Jackets, however, got a basket from Maurice Stephens and Sheppard made 1 of 2 free throws to up the lead to nine points, and that proved to be enough to stave off the Vikings.

“We got the big lead and relaxed,” Jordan said. “I knew Lowndes was a scrappy team because we had played them back in the summer.

“I hope we got some of the kinks worked out,” Jordan added. “Playing at home in the playoffs is big.”

The Blue Jackets were only 5 of 12 at the foul line in the final period, but Sinclair made two to close it out after Jones hit a 3-pointer with 6 seconds left to make it 66-63.

“When it comes to winning in tournament play, you’ve got to get good guard play and make your free throws,” Jordan said. “We got good guard play, but the foul shooting has to get better.”