Staff photo by Ari Selvey Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop’s Marti Jacobson goes up for a jumper during a nonconference girls basketball game against Martin County West Monday at GFW High School in Winthrop.

WINTHROP — Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop was unable to overcome Martin County West’s Emily Anderson and Ella Carlson, who each had 19 points Monday night, as the Mavericks downed the Thunderbirds 50-37 in a nonconference girls basketball game.

GFW was led by Marti Jacobson with 15 points.

GFW found some success in transition, using a full-court trap defense that created turnovers and gave the offense easy shots, but it struggled in the half court, giving the ball away and missing shots.

“I think there’s a few players that didn’t shoot the ball that can shoot the ball,” GFW head coach Rich Busse said. “I think we were a little apprehensive shooting it … Defensively, in a game like this, 50 points, you start to nitpick a few things defensively. A couple rotations where you gave them a pretty easy look where you felt like you should have taken that stuff away. It’s the finer points, the things that your first game reveals to you.”

Busse said the new 35-second shot clock didn’t affect the game much, only coming into play on possessions that were already in a bad position.

“I don’t know that it was a huge factor at all,” Busse said. “There were a couple of possessions where it expired on us or we threw up a shot because of that, but those were maybe already possessions where things were derailing 10 seconds earlier. I was hoping we could force some [violations] defensively in our zone, making them be patient. I don’t know that it ever became a factor.”

MCW started off the game up 8-3 before going on a 10-2 run to take an 18-5 lead. GFW responded with a 9-0 run to climb back to 18-14, forcing an MCW timeout. GFW fought to put the deficit to 24-23 after a layup by Taylor Schafer, but MCW recovered and took a 30-25 lead at halftime.

MCW continued to build on its lead, pulling away with a 45-36 margin before the Thunderbirds took a timeout with 3:22 to play. Anderson hit a floater for the final made shot of the game to give the Mavericks the 50-37 victory.

GFW (0-1) hosts Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s on Thursday.