Staff photo by Jake Olson: Fairmont's Gwyneth Schultz pulls up from the baseline during Tuesday night's contest against Luverne at Jackson County Central High School.

JACKSON – Brylee Miller refused to let her Fairmont basketball career end in premature fashion.

A corner 3-pointer from Luverne’s Khloe Visker knotted the score at 37 with seven minutes to play in Tuesday night’s Section 3AA Girls Basketball Quarterfinal matchup at Jackson County Central High School.

Miller responded with a scoring surge of her own that separated Fairmont for good. A pull-up 3-pointer on the right wing and a put-back layup in the paint gave her team a two-possession advantage they never relinquished.

This prompted Fairmont to outscore Luverne by five-points over the final four minutes of the contest, propelling a 52-42 victory that sealed a third contest against St. James Area on Thursday.

“Offensively, we hit some key shots down the stretch, and that’s what allowed us to pull away with the win,” Fairmont head coach Sara Junkermeier said following the victory.

Miller finished with 26 points, 11 rebounds, seven steals and three assists. Gwyneth Schultz had eight points and three rebounds, while Olive Kawecki had seven points to go along with three assists, two steals and two rebounds.

The impact of Luverne’s size was apparent on both sides of the court. Forwards Taya Johnson and Gracyn Woodley made life difficult for Fairmont’s man-to-man defense, creating unfavorable matchups down low and converting over the smaller defenders.

When either Johnson or Woodley caught the ball on the low block, help defense opened up the opposite forward for clean looks from the free-throw line extended. Johnson took advantage of the mismatch in the first five minutes, with two mid-range jumpers and a top-of-the-key 3-pointer giving Luverne an early 9-6 lead.

Fairmont grew an early lead with less than 10 minutes in the first half after consecutive scoring possessions from Bria Williamson, Kaylee Kloeckner and Schultz aided the 15-9 advantage. After this, however, was when Junkermeier’s team began to feel the impacts of Luverne’s defense.

Fairmont scored just 5 points over the next six minutes of game time. Junkermeier said that Luverne’s defensive strategy of packing the paint limited her team’s abilities in the halfcourt.

“They kept their post player in the lane, so we had difficulty penetrating at times,” Junkermeier said.

Despite the drought, a Miller 3-pointer and Kawecki’s cutting layup gave Fairmont a 25-21 lead heading into the halftime intermission.

Junkermeier countered the Luverne size with a zone defense to open the second half, prompting fewer passes inside a congested interior in hopes of slowing down Johnson and Woodley.

But the Luverne front court tandem took advantage of late defensive rotations during the first five minutes of the second half. Johnson found Woodley on a pair of low-post passes before calling her own number, notching two layups of her own to cut Fairmont’s lead to 30-29.

Miller responded to this by scoring 10 of Fairmont’s next 12 points over the course of four minutes. Two 3-pointers, two free throws and a put-back layup guided her team to a 42-37 lead with a handful of minutes to play.

The scoring run was finished off by a putback layup from Kloeckner and an outside shot by Kawecki, which guided the advantage to 51-37. Fairmont’s defense generated 12 stops over this span, including a pair of forced turnovers and a blocked shot by Miller.

“Our defense stepped up in a big way in the second half, and we were able to slow down their inside game,” Junkermeier said.

Fairmont will take on St. James Area this Thursday at Worthington High School. The Saints earned their spot in the section semifinals after knocking down Pipestone Area 72-56 on Tuesday night in the Jackson County Central High School gymnasium.