Madison girls basketball coach Jon Rossi admits some early tournament games present a catch-22 for his squad.

Blowout wins make everyone happy but can also mask parts of the game that need fine-tuning as the trail becomes tougher.

“It is a catch-22 because it is hard to keep their intensity and focus,” Rossi said after his squad moved to 21-2 and into Saturday’s Edgewood Division III sectional final with a 90-23 win over Dayton Christian on Tuesday night.

“It is what we have been asking them to do, and I didn’t think we kept that focus in the first couple of minutes of the game.”

Part of that lapse may have come from the 15 Mohawk players looking across the floor at just six Crusaders warming up.

“You have to give them a little bit of credit,” Rossi said after the Mohawks had pushed their two-game tournament scoring difference to 190-56. “But we have to be concerned about us. We have goals we want to attain. Tonight, we wanted to make sure we got out unscathed and healthy.”

It took the Mohawks a few minutes to get rolling against the Crusaders (3-19).

Olivia Philpot drained a trey for the Mohawks at the 6:35 mark for the first points of the game to begin a 12-1 run with Philpot scoring seven of the first 12. Madison went on to close the quarter with a 20-5 run for a 32-6 lead after the first eight minutes.

Josey Harding took over to begin the second quarter, running off the first six points to push the lead to 38-6 with 5:30 left in the half, and Rylan Banks scored the last four points of the half as Madison opened a 47-9 lead at the break.

“It is tournament time, every game is fun to play,” Harding said after finishing with 17 points and eight rebounds in a little more than a quarter and a half. “It’s awesome you can play all 15 and still have a 70-point lead … not many teams can do that.”

Madison’s starters played the first three minutes of the third quarter before leaving for the night with a 59-11 lead. Michelle Brunswick (15 points) scored the next six points for the Mohawks to push the lead to 65-11 as Madison closed the quarter on a 17-1 run to take a 72-12 lead into the fourth quarter.

Meghan Miller added 10 points for Madison, which placed 14 in the scoring column. The Mohawks hit 39 of 82 shots (47 percent) while forcing 35 Crusader turnovers and holding a 49-18 advantage on the boards.

Madison will face the winner of the Fenwick-Reading game for the sectional title at noon on Saturday.