Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop’s Luke Bastian (66) and Garrett Stegeman (4) tackles Cleveland ballcarrier Kale Kelley (7) during a Mid Southeast District, West Subdistrict football game in Winthrop on Thursday.

WINTHROP — Despite a strong defensive effort to contain a pass-heavy Cleveland Clippers football team, the Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop Thunderbirds had one too many turnovers and were one big play short in the end Thursday night.

The Clippers put together a strong final defensive stand in their own right at GFW Football Field as they held on for a 17-10 win in a Mid Southeast District, West Subdistrict football game.

The Thunderbirds fumbled the ball away four times in the loss, with their last two fumbles resulting in Cleveland points. GFW’s third fumble of the game came on a run near midfield that ended with a field goal of 20 yards by Caleb Possin. The fourth fumble came seconds later after a bouncing Cleveland kickoff was fumbled and recovered by the Clippers at the GFW 3-yard line. The Clippers scored two plays later with a 3-yard TD pass from quarterback Carson Lyons to Brennan Kortuem for a 17-8 lead late in the third quarter.

Despite the fumbles, GFW head coach Pat Hentges didn’t pin the loss on them.

“Yeah, those fumbles happen, but I’m more disappointed in my playcalling a couple times,” he said. “We had some opportunities to throw the ball and I didn’t take it. Should have done that. At the same time, our guys love being physical and want to go after guys, too. But the fumbles didn’t lose us the game, there’s so many other things.

“We’ve got to clean that stuff up, no doubt about it, but what I really liked is our guys just competed. We were missing that for a little bit, so it was great to see that. I can’t wait to see them continue to do that in the games ahead.”

Owen Swenson led the ground game for GFW with 18 carries for 83 yards, while Garrett Stegeman had 17 carries for 75 yards. Regie Mattes had 15 carries for 43 yards and a touchdown. GFW quarterback Cole Jacobson completed 3 of 5 passes, his biggest to Stegeman in the second half on a completion of 32 yards.

It was also Senior Night for GFW and senior Dominic Krumwiede led the defense with four tackles, while junior Luke Bastian had four tackles, two for a loss.

Sophomore Matthew Lee had one of the biggest tackles of the night for the Thunderbirds after they turned the ball over on downs at the Cleveland 2-yard line in the fourth quarter. On third-and-10, Lyons completed a screen pass to Kale Kelley in the Clippers’ end zone, but Lee was quick to latch on to Kelley and bring him down for a safety, making it a 17-10 game with 7:40 left to play.

Lyons ended up completing 12 of 23 passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns. Lyons’ first touchdown of the night, a 14-yard completion to Bode Bartell, gave the Clippers a 7-0 lead with 7:53 left in the second quarter.

GFW marched down the field on its next drive, however, led by Jacobson’s big completion of 32 yards to Stegeman and multiple rushes that eventually ended in a 2-yard TD run by Mattes. A 2-point conversion catch by Swenson put GFW up 8-7 with 1:26 left in the half.

After Lee’s safety gave GFW the ball back on a punt, the Thunderbirds did manage to work the ball down to the Cleveland 18-yard line, but that effort also worked the clock down. A holding penalty on third down pushed GFW further back to the Cleveland 27 before Jacobson was rushed and had to lob the ball up to his right. The ball was gathered in by Krumwiede but for a loss of 1, setting GFW up for a fourth-and-27 play that led to an incompletion and turnover on downs with 1:41 left.

GFW used two timeouts to stop the clock after that, but a third-down catch of 12 yards by Kortuem sealed the deal for the Clippers.

Despite that conversion, the Thunderbirds’ defense held the Clippers to just 2 of 10 on third downs during the game and 161 total yards of offense to the Thunderbirds’ 229 yards.

“Our scout team does a good job of doing the best they can to simulate the team we have coming up, but what I really like about our defense is we really swarm to the football, we’re really aggressive,” Hentges said. “I thought we tackled better, especially in the second half, we came to balance on things. Those are just some awesome things that I can’t wait to continue to work with. And the guys gotta point those things out, they’ve gotta find the good out of that. It’s tough, I get it, they want to win, but I have a feeling we might end up seeing [Cleveland] again.”

GFW (2-5) is at Norwood Young America for the final game in the regular season on Wednesday night, while Cleveland (4-3) hosts Lester Prairie on Wednesday night.