Staff Photo by Jake Olson: Fairmont's Reed Johnson muscles up a layup during the first half against Pipestone Area on Friday night in the Fairmont High School gymnasium. Johnson finished the contest with 12 points and seven rebounds.

FAIRMONT – It was a complete effort on both sides of the court for the Fairmont boys basketball team on Friday night. The Cardinals held Pipestone Area to under 20-points in both halves of basketball and knocked down 11 outside shots en route to a 69-33 victory, extending the team’s winning streak to five.

“We kind of continued playing the same. I thought we played this well over the past couple of games, but we just hit a bunch more shots which makes things easier,” Fairmont head coach Jared Thompson said.

An emphasis was placed on the shoulders of forward duo Logan Junkermeier and Reed Johnson immediately in this contest. With the size advantage over the entire Arrows front court, both bigs were able to establish themselves down low with their physical style of play. The two combined for 32 points on 71% shooting.

“They are starting to learn how to play together better spacing wise,” Thompson said. “Reed, when he’s playing with Logan, is always going to get the second biggest guy [defender], and a lot of teams don’t have a matchup for him. And Logan one-on-one is obviously an advantage every night.”

A Kellen Fritz 3-pointer capped off a 16-2 scoring run to open the contest for Fairmont during the first eight minutes. While the Arrows 2-3 zone was effective in slowing down the game at first, the Cardinals inside-out passing led to a handful of wide open outside shots that ultimately went in.

Consecutive post-up layups from Junkermeier led to an open opportunity for Tavian Harvey for a corner 3-pointer that pushed the advantage to 23-4. Junkermeier and Johnson traded layups leading up to halftime before Joseph Hackett’s 3-pointer put the finishing touches to a 38-17 cushion at the break.

“There’s always gaps and seems in the zone,” Thompson said. “The big thing we tell our guys is that, ‘Everytime you catch the ball, you have to get your eyes up to see what’s there,’ especially against a zone.”

Fairmont continued to push the pace immediately into the second half. A Johnson and-one layup opened up an 11-5 scoring run capped off by a Junkermeier finish down low.

Consecutive 3-pointers from Brayden Williamson and Merritt Pomerenke extended the Cardinal advantage to 55-24, causing Pipestone Area head coach Michael Slaba to burn a timeout with 10 minutes to play.

“We started the [second] half great and just rolled from there,” Thompson said. “We were able to get everybody in and let the crowd have fun with the kids.”

The Cardinals (5-1) will continue their season on Friday, Dec 26, traveling to Bethany Lutheran College to compete in an eight team tournament.