File photo by Ari Selvey Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop’s Owen Swenson (2) runs with the ball during the first round of the Section 2A Football Tournament on Oct. 21 in Gibbon.

NEW PRAGUE — This past Saturday, Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop took down the top seed in the Section 2A Football Tournament, downing Cleveland 26-7 to avenge its loss to the Clippers earlier in the season.

Fourth-seeded GFW has a chance to avenge another loss this Friday in the Section 2A Championship Friday at New Prague High School as they take on the third-seeded Lester Prairie Bulldogs.

The Bulldogs (6-4) held off the Firebirds (6-4) on Oct. 3 with a 24-22 win.

But that’s not how GFW sees the matchup, with the team focused on just playing their game for at least one more week.

“We don’t look at it as a revenge game,” GFW head coach Pat Hentges said. “One of the things that’s really good about this team that we’ve got right now is they are so focused on the process. Last Saturday after we beat Cleveland, the only thing I told them is we get to practice again on Monday, and they were excited.”

GFW nearly flipped the score of the first matchup with Cleveland, turning a 21-point loss on Sept. 19 in Gibbon into a 19-point win this past Saturday in Cleveland.

“We knew we had to clean up some things from the first game,” Hentges said. “Cleveland is just so explosive. They have a lot of dudes, they’ve got great athletes at receiver, and their quarterback can just throw on a dime. We knew we had to pressure him as much as possible, but we wanted to cover and try to make him second guess and get off of his first read defensively. We knew we had to tackle well, at times we did that. We’re pretty aggressive, and teams sometimes take advantage of that, but we’re not going to change that.

“Offensively, we knew we had to communicate a little bit better and stay on our blocks. Guys did a great job of communicating, seeing what needed to be done, letting us know what they liked and what worked well. And we knew we needed to steal some possessions and we were able to do that on a kickoff or two and then of course we forced several fumbles and that certainly helped as well.”

The turnaround is indicative of the improvements that the team has been making throughout the season, as the team has steadily raised its playing level each week.

“I think part of the reason that we get better is because we haven’t changed anything,” Hentges said. “Our seniors could next year come to practice and be blindfolded and know exactly what we’re doing on a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. That has helped a lot. This team really believes in that grind. A lot of times you keep doing the same thing, it can get monotonous and boring. They just know we have to do these things in order to get better.

“We made a couple of moves, at one point we had Garrett Stegeman playing more halfback than fullback, and we knew we had to move him to fullback and we did that about halfway through the season. That certainly helped, but like any football team or any team, if you play more on the offensive and defensive line, you get comfortable, you learn how to trust each other, and we’re just fortunate enough that we’ve been pretty injury-free and we’ve been able to do that.”

Stegeman leads the team this season 946 yards and 11 touchdowns on the ground, including 181 yards and two touchdowns in the last game against Cleveland and 216 yards and four touchdowns in the 50-14 win over Mayer Lutheran in the opening round of the tournament. Matthew Lee has added 679 yards and 10 touchdowns, while Owen Swenson has rushed for 524 yards and six scorers. Defensively, Luke Bastian has 72 tackles with 17 TFLS, three sacks and three forced fumbles, while Lee has 58 tackles with two TFLs and two interceptions. Jose Farias Banda has added 57 tackles, 12 TFLs and three sacks.

Lester Prairie has some players of its own and GFW will have to work to slow them down.

“Their quarterback [Axel Bahena] is just a great athlete,” Hentges said. “Of course he’s been their running back the two years before that, but he’s done a great job. You can tell he’s started to take ownership of that position both with his legs and his arm. He’s starting to throw the ball better. Number 40 on offense [Kaison Walstrom] is very physical and he does a great job at linebacker on defense. Their other running back, number 21 [Jack Madsen] does a great job, number 5 [Eli Zebel] has great hands, and they have several offensive linemen that can definitely move people around.

“Defensively they are so sound. Their linebackers fill hard, they’re coached well, they tackle well. We have to be very solid in our deception and very solid in our fakes. We have to make sure we stay blocked and have great pad level. This will be a great matchup and a pretty physical game.”

In order to come away with that win against Lester Prairie, Hentges said the team will have to continue to be focused on the process.

“We have to be focused on today, and we have to be focused on us,” he said. “Our team has done a great job since the first Cleveland game, where I think the scoreboard got into our heads, and we haven’t let that happen. Even when we played Springfield in the last regular season game [a 42-14 loss], they were way up on us but our guys still played football.

“We know that we have to be physical, we have to be sound, we have to tackle well. We need to be able to communicate. Those are the things we’re going to continue to work on.”