Photo by Jake Przytarski Marshall’s Rachel Schwarz pushes the ball over the net during their match against TMB on Thursday. The Tigers defeated the Panthers 3-0.

MARSHALL – The Marshall volleyball team’s seven senior leaders were recognized for their illustrious careers prior to Thursday’s match against Tracy-Milroy-Balaton and later helped guide the team to its 20th win of the season in a straight-sets sweep over the Panthers.

Coach Dan Westby lauded the senior group that includes Logan Sherman, Kate Bucher, Paige Andries, Rachel Schwarz, Bria Morris, Mia Schnaible and Keziah Knudson for their long list of accomplishments in a Tiger uniform.

“We tried to work real hard (Thursday) to get our seniors on the court together as much as possible,” said Westby. “Those kids have done a lot. Most of them have been on varsity since they were sophomores, so back to back state tournament appearances and haven’t lost a conference match. Those kids have done a great job, so we tried to do the best we could tonight to reward those kids.

Westby credits their cohesiveness and work ethic as the keys to their success throughout their time with the program.

“First and foremost, they just do such a nice job of working together and they respect one another,” said Westby. “Everyday they bring it to practice, which for a coach that makes things so much easier. It makes our job so much easier.”

In the opening set of the senior night matchup, the Tigers fittingly received a lift from Schwarz who opened the scoring with eight straight points at the service line including an ace to put the Panthers on their heels early.

“Rachel went back there and just had a nice serving string that she put together and it’s good to see her be able to go back there and do that because that’s not an easy thing to do especially against a team like TMB,” said Westby.

With a comfortable lead in hand and momentum completely in their favor, the Tigers continued to dominate en route to a 25-6 victory to take a 1-0 lead.

Following another one-sided win for Marshall in set two, the Panthers were able to bounce back from a slow start to begin set three and closed out the match on a high-note by outscoring the Tigers 5-3 down the stretch to come to within six points at 18-12. The late surge would not be enough, however, as Marshall went on to beat TMB 25-19 to win the match 3-0.

In spite of the end result, TMB coach Rick Haberman said there’s always a lot to take away after playing a team of Marshall’s caliber.

“It’s really good to play Marshall because they really make you earn points,” said Haberman. “They’re such a good defensive team that you really need to earn any kills you’re going to get. They’re not going to give you anything for free so you have to earn that. They serve tough and control the ball well so they’re on offense a lot which really stresses your defense. So, hopefully you get better from just playing a team that’s that good at serving, passing and defense and a really challenging team to play defense against.”

Next up for the Panthers (15-8) is a home matchup against Pipestone on Tuesday at 7:15 p.m. Haberman said improving first-touch will be a point of emphasis in their next match.

“Control and first-touch (will be a point of emphasis). That’s pretty much what we’re going to take out of this is we need to get better at first-touch so we can put more pressure on the other team’s defense and not give them so many free balls,” said Haberman.

Next up for the Tigers (20-4) is a weekend tournament in Lakeville for the Lakeville North Showcase. Westby said the team will need to be ready to go against a tough field of teams.

“We’re going to have to be ready to go. It’s just a case of if you’re not focused you can get embarassed in a hurry so we need to go up there with the intient of making a good showing,” said Westby. “All of those matches up there are so important down the stretch. Other than our tournament this weekend, our final regular season match is Tuesday at St. Peter so it’s winding down here and we need to continue to move in the right direction.”

Marshall 3, TMB 0

Marshall 25 25 25

TMB 6 8 19

KILLS: Marshall (Sherman 10, Morris 8, Hilgemann 5); TMB (Lessman 6, Wendland 4).

DIGS: Marshall (Schnaible 17, Schwarz 11, Hilgemann 10); TMB (M. Dolan 13, Langerock 7).

SERVING (Aces): Marshall (Hilgemann 14-14 (3), Sherman 10-10 (2), Meier 14-14); TMB (Wendland 3, Peterson 1, Langerock 1).

SET ASSISTS: Marshall (Schwarz 15, Sherman 8); TMB (Langerock 16).

BLOCKS: Marshall (Andries 4, Meier 2); TMB (Wendland 1).