Looks like the Wareham boys basketball team found a higher gear Saturday afternoon, with freshman Dominic Mello in the driver’s seat.

With enough fast breaks and tenacious steals to fill a highlight reel, the Vikings blitzed their way past a challenging Burke High School team for a 64-56 win in the state Division 3 South quarter final match.

The match proved a much more up tempo affair compared to the team’s win Thursday against Coyle & Cassidy High School.

The take away: Blink, and you might have missed one of several dramatic plays. Loose balls were desperately fought over, hard fouls whipped the crowd into a frenzy and clutch 3-point shooting, ultimately, carried the day.

Delivering the fatal blow to the Bulldogs, who led at halftime and were never far behind the Vikings until the final minutes, was Mello. All together, he had a team high 22 points. With 3:40 left the Vikings down 51-53, Mello cooly nailed a trey, minutes later he hit another three making it 59-54.

The team scored from beyond the 3-point perimeter for most of the game having found a rhythm that worked.

A technical foul against Wareham’s Cam Bariteau for foul language in the closing seconds of the first half awarded Burke four free throw shots that were all sunk, putting the Bulldogs up 36-32.

Burke also secured short lived four point leads in the third and fourth quarters. But the Vikings surgical 3-point shooting erased any hope their opponents had.

Assisting Mello on offense was senior guard Ashantay Tavares who scored 15 points (all 3-point shots). Junior guard Jamual Sims and junior forward Jahmal Silva both scored 9 points each.

With the win the Vikings (No. 5 seed) advance to the semi-final game on March 7 at 5:30 p.m.in Brockton High School against Norwell (No. 1 seed).