Staff photo by Ari Selvey Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop’s Dominic Rose goes up for a layup during a nonconference boys basketball game against Mayer Lutheran Monday at GFW High School in Winthrop.

WINTHROP — Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop led by as many as 34 points over Mayer Lutheran on Monday as it cruised to an 85-63 victory in a nonconference boys basketball game.

Dominic Rose’s 32 points and strong defensive effort led the way for the Thunderbirds, with Ashton Buboltz scoring 10 and Alex Johnson adding 9 for GFW.

Rose said his team did a great job of pushing the pace and putting in effort during the game.

“Definitely teammates pushing the ball always, fighting for rebounds and always looking ahead and sharing the ball,” Rose said. “I think that’s a big part of it, and credit to my teammates for always looking out for me. Fast breaks are a huge thing for us.”

Rose added that the team’s style of defense was a big part of their success.

“A lot of teams don’t see it, and I think we’re one of the only teams that run it,” he said. “It’s a different look for them, and they can’t really run what they want to run.”

GFW head coach Ryan Jacobson said that Rose’s leadership and defense was a big part of the team’s success.

“Our defense gave us some easy opportunities,” he said. “Any time that you can have your defense turn into some easy opportunities, that’s what we’re looking to do, to create some turnovers. Dom Rose really played focused, he was dialed in. I don’t know how many steals he had, but it had to be close to 10. And he finished and converted on the other end. He pointed up our defense, and our defense created a lot of opportunities for us.”

The one downside to the win for GFW is an injury to one of their top guards, Cole Jacobson. Cole Jacobson left the game midway through the first half with a right ankle injury and had to be helped off the court.

“He handles the ball for us,” coach Jacobson said. “Braylan Freitag is going to have to probably slip into that point guard role. Layton Hamre off the bench will have to handle the basketball a little bit more. All of them can kind of do it by default, we just have to do it with four guys instead of one primarily handling the basketball. Hopefully we get some ice on it, get some therapy and treatment and we’ll have him back here before too long. I think he’s going to be all right, other guys are just going to step into that role for a little bit.”

Down 5-4 to open the game, GFW went on a quick 9-0 run, with Rose scoring 6 and Brennir Peterson hitting a 3-pointer to take a lead that would continue for the remainder of the game. The Thunderbirds went up 46-26 in the first half, pulling away with a 21-3 run that carried past the halftime break to put them up 52-26.

The Thunderbirds had plenty of time to play their bench at the end of the game, holding onto a lead that wavered between 34 and 22 points for the remainder of the half.

GFW (9-8) hosts Le Sueur-Henderson on Tuesday.