Photo by Sam Thiel Marshall senior Erica Jones speaks during the Tigers’ welcome home ceremony after a runner-up finish at the Class AA tournament Saturday at Marshall High School.

MARSHALL – With sirens blaring from the local fire trucks and police cars, the Marshall volleyball team was brought back to town in style hours after they earned a runner-up finish at the Class AA state tournament on Saturday.

The Tigers were then welcomed with open arms by a large group of family and friends with a short ceremony.

The Marshall seniors on the team came up to the podium and thanked everyone for their support all season long.

“I would just like to thank all of you for being here; I know a lot of you came up to the cities to support us and we really appreciate that. I’d like to thank all of the coaches; you guys put in so much time and we would not be the team we are without you,” Erica Jones said. “I don’t think that behind-the-scenes people don’t see what the coaches do, they spend late nights putting together our scouting reports and making sure we’re prepared for the games, coming up with practice plans and just doing all of the little things to make sure our team is as good as we can be. So thank you guys.”

The Tigers were led by the coaching staff of head coach Dan Westby and assistant coaches Alex Boddy, Sarah Kubat, Amber Altheide and Heidi Deragisch.

Westby said the support from the fans and parents throughout the season and at the state tournament was great to see and appreciates what they do for the team.

“When we go to tournaments during the season, one of the things you’ll hear over and over again is teams love having us in attendance because they said Marshall always travels so well,” Westby said. “Teams notice those sorts of things and appreciate it and they recognize your commitment and the time you put in as parents and it certainly is appreciated.”

Senior Sofie Bock said the hardest part was realizing their journey as a team had come to an end but knew they went out with their hardest battle in the end.

“As you can imagine, a lot of tears were shed after the end of the game, in part of that was we missed a state championship, but I think the bigger part was that this wonderful thing that we’ve had over the past couple of months came to an end,” Bock said. “All the late nights and early mornings, the time we’ve had as a team with our coaches, I think that was the hardest part. The coaches said it best in the locker room after the game, ‘We saved our best for last.’ Whether you streamed online or were at the game, I know for sure that we can say we battled our hardest at the state tournament.”