ABOVE: Fairmont's Oliver Tordsen fires a pass over the Windom defense Friday night in the opening round of the Section 3AA playoffs in Fairmont.

FAIRMONT – Chants of “talk it over” rang out of the Windom Eagles’ student section, a sentiment that did not age well as the Fairmont Cardinals took control and locked in an 82-62 victory in the opening game of the Section 3AA Boys Basketball Tournament.

“It’s been a couple of years for us, but Windom’s an incredibly difficult team to

play against,” said Fairmont head coach Jared Thompson. “I said not one of these first-round matchups would be a surprise if anybody knocked off anybody. Windom’s really good, but so is everybody in our subsection. We have one of the best subsections in the state. So balanced, it’s there for the taking. And we were ready mentally.”

Leading the Cardinals was Oliver Tordsen with 26 points and 22 rebounds, while Logan Junkermeier had 16 points and 11 rebounds. Hadan Toomer had 15 points and five rebounds, while Joseph Hackett had 15 points and four rebounds.

“The kids had a good week of practice,” said Thompson. “They’ve been sticking together, playing well. We knew how difficult it would be. Windom made their runs. They spaced the floor with their 3-point shooting. It’s so hard to defend them, but we did.”

The Cardinals opened the game with the usual game plan working around the perimeter before feeding it to one of the bigs in the paint for the bucket. A driving layup from Tordsen put Fairmont up 6-2, but the outside shooting of the Eagles made short work of the lead, quickly tying the game up at 8-8. A 9-0 run capped by a bucket from Windom’s Quintin Tietz put the Eagles up 17-9 prompting a Fairmont timeout.

Fairmont came out of the huddle with a heightened level of intensity and quickly scored courtesy of a bucket from Toomer. The Cardinals then went on a 5-0 run to pull within 2 points, 20-18. The two continued to battle back and forth with the Eagles extending the lead back to 4, but a Hackett 3-pointer started a 7-0 run by the Cardinals that reclaimed the lead 27-24. The Eagles used their first timeout of the game to try and stop the skid. With the momentum in Fairmont’s favor the Cardinals locked in and took a 39-31 lead into the half.

The Cardinals kept the pressure on the Eagles as the second half began reopening the scoring with a Hackett bucket from behind the arc. Fairmont’s defense slowed the scoring of the Eagles drastically, setting the Cardinals up with a 10-point lead, 48-38.

Windom began to rally back, cutting the Cardinals’ lead back down to single digits, but a pair of 3-pointers from Schultze and Hackett extended the lead putting Fairmont up 66-52. The scoring slowed as Windom’s full-court press began to cause problems for the Cardinals. A flurry of buckets from the Eagles caused Fairmont to call a timeout with 5:42 left in the game.

An 8-0 run by the Cardinals extended the Fairmont lead and put the score at 77-59. A couple of Tordsen buckets would close out the scoring and Toomer held the ball to run out the clock securing the Fairmont victory.

The Cardinals will take on Jackson County Central in the quarter-finals at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” said Joe Long. “Looking forward to playing Jackson. It’s a pretty big rivalry between us. I’m glad we could win together as a team. Teamwork wins games.”