Submitted photo – Head coach Tom Chapman talks to his players during Friday night’s game.

The tough competition in this year’s H-DNL clearly prepared the Fortuna Huskies for the North Coast Section playoffs.

The Fortuna girls traveled to Lake County for the second time in four days on Friday and came away with another big postseason win, defeating Middletown 60-47 to advance to next week’s semifinals.

After waiting 15 years for a first road playoff win, they have now posted two in the same week.

It’s also the program’s first second-round playoff win in at least 20 years since MaxPreps began keeping records.

“I’m really proud of the girls,” head coach Tom Chapman said. “We’ve been road Warriors (this season) and they didn’t show any affects from the travel. It’s exciting.”

They won with a big night shooting and some stellar defense in the second half.

“We started shooting the ball really well and kind of kept it going throughout the night,” Chapman added. “That was our highest scoring game of the season and it was awesome to see.”

Junior Macee Marquez set the tone on offense and was on fire from downtown, hitting six 3-pointers in the win and finishing with a game-high 23 points.

The outstanding junior’s big night spurred her teammates on.

“It was great to see her get her confidence up,” Chapman said of Marquez, who hit an early 3 and never let up. “It was s special night for her when we really needed it and she absolutely rose to the occasion.”

Jorlynn Villalvazo also had a big night offensively for Fortuna and finished with 12 points, while teammate Mariah Bravo added 10 points, giving the sharpshooting Huskies three players in double digits.

But it was the team’s second-half defense that really paved the way to victory.

The normally solid defensive Huskies gave up 33 points in the opening half, which was almost their average for an entire game, but they adjusted at halftime and it made a big difference after the break.

“Credit to Middletown, they shot the ball pretty good in that first half, but we stayed with them,” Chapman said. “But we made some adjustments at halftime and that made the difference.”

The Fortuna defense held the home team to just 14 second-half points, with several players stepping up.

Villalvazo was “dominating inside in that third quarter,” according to Chapman.

“We caught fire in that third quarter and some great things happened,” the coach added.

Chittenden helped key the second-half surge with two big 3-point plays in the third quarter, while the trio of Jaydyn Dalton, Taylor Heussler and Olivia Scilacci combined to guard Middletown’s leading all-time scorer, Mia Hoogendoorn, and held her to just four points over the final two quarters after she scored 10 points in the first half.

She was held scoreless in the fourth.

Chittenden finished with six points, while Heussler and Scilacci each had four points and Tatiana Olson added three.

With the win, the Huskies are at least guaranteed a play-in game for the NorCal playoffs.

The No. 6 seeds will now advance to play No. 2 Saint Mary’s in Tuesday night’s NCS semifinals, where a win would guarantee them a spot in the NorCals and a loss would send them on to a third-place game, with the winner of that matching also advancing beyond the NCS playoffs.