Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop’s Taylor Bauer watches a 3-pointer of hers during a Section 2A playoff game Thursday against Madelia at GFW High School in Winthrop. Also pictured is Madelia’s Grace Tatro (front) and Alicia Lugo (back-left).

WINTHROP — Forcing turnovers was going to be key for Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop on Thursday night if it wanted to win its first-round playoff game against Madelia.

The No. 16-seeded Thunderbirds did enough with their full-court press and got a spark to their offense courtesy of junior Taylor Bauer as they downed the No. 17-seeded Blackhawks 61-40 in a Section 2A Girls Basketball Tournament game.

Bauer led the Thunderbirds with a game-high 20 points.

“I think we were definitely more aggressive and we just held in there,” Bauer said. “Usually in the second half we slow down a little bit, and I think we did really good and kept it up.”

With GFW 36-19 at halftime, there were hints of that slowing down early in the second half as the Blackhawks got back-to-back buckets from Alicia Lugo and Katherine DeVlaeminck to trail 36-23. But that Madelia run was short-lived as Bauer knocked down a 3.

Moments later, Bauer hit another 3 before a corner 3 from Keyden Buboltz had GFW up 45-25.

“It feels pretty good,” Bauer said of the second-half 3s. “Once I get the team going and they have the same excitement that I do and I just keep it going and it goes through the whole team. We were all excited.”

Kinley Bruns added 10 points for the Thunderbirds, while Buboltz had 9 points, Trinity Stearns had 7 points and Nicole Duehn had 6 points.

Madelia was led by Lugo’s 13 points, while Grace Tatro had 12 points, DeVlaeminck had 8 points and Kellie Koberoski chipped 6.

The Thunderbirds were quick to capitalize off their defense, building a quick 10-0 lead to open the game and force a Madelia timeout. The Blackhawks got some offense going out of the timeout and cut their deficit to 12-9 after buckets inside from Tatro and Lugo.

GFW got back on course and took a double-digit lead again, 21-11, on a 3 from Buboltz. A 3 from Lugo cut the Madelia deficit to 23-15, but Bruns answered with a 3 to give GFW a double-digit lead again. GFW’s press started to wreak havoc on Madelia late in the half as the Thunderbirds ended the half on a 9-2 run to lead 36-19 at the half.

“We have to create extra chances through pressure,” GFW head coach Rich Busse said. “We’re not good enough offensively to go toe-to-toe with anybody. So it did that. A couple places that we need to be better is when we drop back into half-court of not losing the important people.

“A few times the wrong people were left wide open and it seems like every time you lose them, they cash it in and they probably had another 10 points tonight just because you don’t communicate out on your exchange. So that part’s got to be better, so another day to practice that.”

Despite GFW getting its lead to 20 early in the second half, the Blackhawks hung around and got it back within 12, 47-35, on a 3 from the 6-foot-1 DeVlaeminck. Duehn, GFW’s 6-foot forward, got the points back on the other end with an and-one, but the battle between the two team’s bigs ultimately took a back seat to the guard play around the perimeter.

“When you got length on defense around the basket, it’s hard to drive and score,” Busse said. “They effect the shots on both sides of the ball, so you’ve got to make some shots from the perimeter. In spurts we did that.

“Keyden Buboltz came in and off the bench I think had three [3-pointers]. Taylor Bauer, she was, I would say, our spark, got us going and hit a few when we were struggling to score, all the sudden she’d come through with one for us. We probably got a 3 from four or five different people.”

It wasn’t long after Duehn’s and-one that the Thunderbirds took their largest lead of the night, 57-35, after Bauer dished it to Buboltz in the corner for another 3.

The Blackhawks finished their season 3-23.

GFW, now 5-21, has a tall task ahead of it as it travels to take on No. 1-seeded Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s at 7 p.m. Monday night.