LYNN – The St. Mary’s boys basketball team did its part Wednesday to make the MIAA tournament doubleheader at the Conigliaro Gym a smashing success.The sixth-seeded Spartans toyed with St. Clement for most of their Division 4 North first-rounder, defeating the Anchormen, 66-50, to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinal at Maimonides in Brookline (8:15).After a pretty even first period, in which St. Mary’s (15-6) took a 13-10 lead, the Spartans exploded in the second quarter, outscoring the Anchormen, 18-7, to take a 31-17 lead at the break.”Two things concerned me going into the game,” said Spartan coach Kevin Moran. “We had a couple of tough games down the stretch, and I was concerned about our intensity and our execution.”The intensity was there,” he said. “And even though we had some brief spells, so was our execution.”It was obvious senior Nick Gagliolo was full of intensity. He came out of the gate and went to the hoop, strong, and turned it into a three-point play. And except for some early back-and-forth, St. Mary’s kept building its lead from thereon out.Gagliolo finished with a game-high 21 points, drawing rave reviews from his coach.”Of course, Nick is our leader, and we’ve come to expect that he has games like this,” said Moran, “and we need him to have games like this. Both him and Rosie (Campbell). They’re two-year all-stars and we really count on them.”And although Campbell only ended up with seven points, he and Matt Manning (9 points, 10 rebounds) owned the boards (“Manning’s been a real stud the last five or six games,” said Moran), allowing guards Luis Rijo, Randolph Thurman and Jonathan Capano to harass St. Clement guard James Alphonse all night.”They really kept him in check,” said Moran. “That’s a testament to them. He really didn’t get going until it was too late.”Alphonse led St. Clement with 17 points, but a little under half of them were scored after the game was well in hand.St. Mary’s continued its assault in the third quarter, steadily building its lead to over 26 points (48-22) before the Anchormen put on a mild spurt at the end to get it down to 21 (53-32) going into the fourth quarter.In no time, the lead was back up to 24 (60-36) before Moran gave some of his starters the rest of the night off.And that’s when St. Clement worked feverishly to make the score a little more respectable, scoring eight straight points to close the gap.But St. Mary’s was never in any real danger, and the bench players closed the game efficiently.”That was good,” Moran said. “We like to get all our guys in the game whenever we can. So I was happy about that.”