CHALLENGING PLAY — Fairmont’s Levi Pooley (22) challenges Martin County West’s Jacob Wilmes during nonconference basketball action Monday night in Trimont. The Cardinals’ Logan Junkermeier (35) assists on the play. (Photo by Greg Abel)

TRIMONT — The Fairmont Cardinals boys basketball squad got the win on the road against the Martin County West Mavericks 69-56 Monday night in Trimont.

Senior guard Levi Pooley paced the Cardinals with 21 points, including a hot start with 16 points on 7 of 8 shooting in the first half.

Cardinals’ head coach Jared Thompson was pleased with the senior leader.

“Levi has been playing really well lately. He’s playing with a lot of confidence and the last couple of weeks he has really taken his game to that senior level,” Thompson said. “You hope and wish to get senior guards who play like that because we struggled at times in that first half and he was able to calm us down.”

As for the Cardinals’ supporting cast, it was a group effort.

Junior Oliver Tordsen ended with eight points and grabbed 10 boards to hold down the middle. His partner in the post, sophomore Logan Junkermeier, helped out with eight points.

The Cardinals attempted to force turnovers with their press and then looked to get out in transition for easy baskets.

Junior forward Harmon Schrunk played with an aggressive style all night. He finished the game with 11 points to go with four boards and a pair of steals.

The Cardinals took a 43-37 lead into the lockerroom at halftime and came out with a defensive mindset in the second half.

“I thought they (Mavericks) handled our pressure pretty well in the first half and that got them out into the open floor,” Thompson said. “Once in the open floor, they were able to find some shooters, but we cleaned some of those things up in the half-court sets during halftime.”

The Mavericks fought hard but their lack of size compared to the Cardinals cost them down the stretch.

Junior guard Kale Larson had a big first half for the Mavericks. He ended with 15 points to go with his six assists, five rebounds and three steals.

Junior forward Jacob Wilmes capped his night with 19 points and seven boards for the Mavs on 8 of 17 shooting splits.

Fairmont (5-10) plays host to St. Clair tonight, while Martin County West (1-15) travels to Nicollet tonight.

Fairmont 43-26–69

MCW 37-19–56

FAIRMONT (69)

Pooley 9-16 0-0 21, Schrunk 4-9 2-2 11, Schultze 3-5 0-0 9, Tordsen 4-7 0-2 8, Junkermeier 4-4 0-1 8, Geiger 2-6 0-0 5, Toomer 2-6 0-0 4, Hackett 1-6 0-0 3, Maakestad 0-1 0-0 0, Chen 0-1 0-0 0.

MCW (56)

Wilmes 8-17 3-5 19, K. Larson 6-9 0-0 15, Schmidt 2-5 0-0 6, Rathmann 3-7 0-0 6, Clarke 2-5 0-0 5, L. Larson 1-2 0-0 2, Meyer 1-1 0-0 2, Roben 0-0 1-2 1.

Fairmont defeated Martin County West 50-24 in B-squad action Monday.

Tavian Harvey scored 11 points for the Cardinals, Joe Long netted nine more and Jordan Thompson tossed in seven points.

Fairmont completed the sweep Monday night with a 44-24 C-squad win over MCW.

Reed Johnson and Jeremiah Lebbi led the Cardinals with 13 and 10 points, respectively.

•

Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop 80, Martin County West 65 — Jacob Wilmes generated a double-double performance to fuel the Mavericks’ second-half comeback, but the Thunderbirds still managed to exit the Westbrook gymnasium with a 15-point win during Saturday’s showcase game.

Wilmes poured in a game-best 26 points and pulled down 12 rebounds, while teammates Kale Larson and Hunter Schmidt supplied 14 and 12 points, respectively. Larson connected on three 3-pointers, while Schmidt hit four treys.

Cole Jacobson netted 20 points to top GFW, while teammate Braylan Freitag supplied 17 points.