PORTLAND – Tournament teams, be warned. James Kapothanasis is starting to feel a lot like his old self, and his timing couldn’t be better.

Playing in his fourth game after missing nearly three weeks because of mononucleosis, Kapothanasis scored 14 points Friday night to lead fourth-seeded Cheverus to a 49-30 victory against fifth-ranked Thornton Academy in a Western Class A boys’ basketball quarterfinal at the Portland Expo.

“Coming back, I was really out of shape,” Kapothanasis said. “I just worked hard in practice to get myself back in shape. The last couple of days I’ve been feeling 100 percent with my energy and stamina, so definitely the timing is good.”

Cheverus (14-5) will face top-ranked Deering (16-3) in the semifinals at 6 p.m. Friday at the Cumberland County Civic Center.

The Stags, who led 8-5 after the first quarter, took control by opening the second with a 14-0 run.

Kapothanasis and Cam Olsen each scored four points to start the run, and Louis DiStasio and Kapothanasis, who scored nine points in the first half, capped it with back-to-back 3-pointers to launch Cheverus into a 22-5 lead.

“James, wow,” said Cheverus Coach Bob Brown with a whistle. “You know, it’s like a puzzle. You take one piece out and the puzzle doesn’t even fit. He was the piece and now he’s back.

“Now all of a sudden it doesn’t have to be just Louis (DiStasio) or just Shawn (Grover). Now you have to play (Kapothanasis), too.”

Thornton (13-6), which didn’t score its first field goal until the final minute of the first quarter, managed to salvage something from the half. Justin Pollard, who led the Trojans with 15 points, hit from 3-point range and Adam Ek followed with a basket to leave the Trojans down 24-10 at the break.

“(Cheverus) came out and played a great game,” said Thornton Coach Bob Davies. “You have to give credit to them. We had a hard time in the offensive end because of them. It wasn’t because of us. They did a great job.

“A team like that, they get separation and it’s hard to come back. We needed to keep that game close the whole game and we couldn’t.”

The Stags added to their lead in the opening moments of the third quarter and built a 20-point advantage, their largest of the game, in just over four minutes.

Kapothanasis added five points in a 9-3 run that gave the Stags a 33-13 lead.

“In practice, Coach has been telling me to look for my shot more, especially tonight with Louie (DiStasio) sick because he’s a lot of our offense,” said Kapothanasis.

“(Thornton) sags a lot, so there’s a lot of curling and slips and fades, so I just had to focus on that. My teammates made some great passes so they helped out a lot. I just had to shoot it.”

DiStasio, the leading scorer for the Stags, missed three days of practice this week because of illness.

He played regularly but was held to nine points.

In the end it was Cheverus’ defense that snuffed out the Trojans’ hopes of an extended run in the tournament.

Thornton managed only 15 points (six baskets and one 3-pointer) from the field.

“I think we really came to play and played great defense,” said Brown.

“I’m not sure we could play much better defense than we did.”