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DURHAM — For the third time this season, the Exeter High boys’ basketball team handled Salem. The first two wins were building blocks toward a good season, but Saturday’s triumph over the Blue Devils was one the Blue Hawks have waited 42 years for.

Exeter is atop the rest for the first time since 1977 after a 53-30 drubbing of Salem in the Division I state title game at UNH’s Lundholm Gymnasium. The top-seeded Blue Hawks completed an undefeated season by serving the third-seeded Blue Devils a taste of their own defensive medicine. Salem was held to single digits in three of four quarters while Exeter outscored Salem 30-11 in the second half.