Photo by Sam Thiel Minneota’s Abby Frie (9) celebrates after scoring a point during their Section 3A tournament match against No. 3 Canby on Thursday. The Vikings defeated the Lancers 3-0 to advance to the championship match.

MARSHALL — After the No. 3 Canby volleyball team used a come-from-behind effort to earn a five-set win over Lakeview, the Lancers looked to keep their momentum going while their opponent, No. 1 Minneota was in search of reaching its fourth consecutive section championship match.

The Vikings used a strong start to help fuel a 3-0 (25-7, 25-17, 25-11) victory over Canby and advance to the Section 3A championship match.

Minneota coach Hayley Fruin felt they did a nice job of using their serving to take Canby’s middles out of system and set up their blockers up front.

“Canby’s got a tough offensive threat, they like to use those middles and those middles are really good with Charlotte Wright and Maya Wente,” Fruin said. “If we could get them out of system with our serving to take away their middles, we thought we would have a little bit better of an opportunity for our middles to set up their block and we did just that. We served tough from behind the line; I think we came out with 10 aces, so give a lot of credit to those servers.”

The Vikings quickly showed that agressiveness from the offense in the opening set, as Minneota took a 4-1 lead before an Abby Hennen kill pushed its advantage to 9-4. After Minneota reached its first double-digit lead of the evening at 14-4, the Vikings continued to control the tempo the rest of the frame, closing with an 11-3 run to take Set 1, 25-7.

Set 2 was a little tighter to start, with Canby taking its first lead of the evening at 7-6 before both teams traded points over the next few serves that saw the Vikings regain the advantage at 14-12. Minneota continued to maintain its lead the rest of the way, as the Vikings pushed their advantage to 19-14 before taking Set 2 25-17 and a 2-0 lead in the match.

Facing another quick deficit, the Lancers were able to draw to within four on a Brooke Nelson kill after Minneota had built a 7-2 lead to make it a 9-5 deficit. But that would be the closest Canby got the rest of the way, as Minneota went on a 10-4 run to take a double-digit lead at 19-9 before claiming Set 3 25-11 and move on to the championship match.

Canby coach Jenai Wright said they weren’t able to make enough plays against a tough Minneota opponent.

“It was a tough loss for us,” coach Wright said. “We came in with the momentum from Tuesday and that was big, but no excuses, though, Minneota didn’t let a lot of balls drop and we basically made more errors than they did.”

Nelson and Maya Wente led the way for the Lancers with seven kills each while Gabby Harding added four. Cassidy Hunt led in digs with 11 while Rachel Harding added seven and Kyla Rangaard had six. Paige Nelson led in set assists with 14 while Rachel Harding added nine.

Abby Hennen led the way for the Vikings with 15 kills while Natalee Rolbiecki added nine and Morgan Hennen had eight. Abby Hennen led in digs with 15 while Rolbiecki added 11 and McKenna Yost led in set assists with 29.

Fruin said their key throughout the match was their ability to pass the ball well and spread the offense to multiple hitters.

“I think it was our serve-receive passing. We were just connecting on all cylinders and that just helps our setters out because they weren’t running too far out behind that 10-foot line to get the ball, so they had three options available at all times,” Fruin said. “I thought they did a great job of finding all of their middles too and mixing up the ball; Morgan Hennen had a phenomenal night as well as Abby Hennen, I thought those two really came alive.”

With the loss, Canby finishes its season with an overall record of 23-9. The Lancers graduate three seniors in Brooke Nelson, Charlotte Wright and Hunt.

“With only having three seniors and the rest being young, they really had to step it up and take that leadership role and I think all three did an awesome job of that,” coach Wright said. “We’ve got Cassidy who will be missed at the libero position, that was a new spot for her this year and she held her own in the back row. We’ve got Brooke who’s a six rotation player and she will be missed in the outside area, front row and back row. Charlotte was a middle hitter who’s serving was awesome and she held her own in the front row and all three of them we’re really going to miss. They were three really good quarterbacks for this program.”

Minneota (27-3) will now face the other No. 1 seed, Adrian/Ellsworth, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Minneota 3, Canby 0

Canby 7 17 11

Minneota 25 25 25

Serving: Canby (P. Nelson 10-10; Wright 6-6; Hunt 5-5-1); Minneota (Pesch 13-13-2; Rost 11-11-2; Rolbiecki 12-12-2; M. Hennen 17-18-3).

Kills: Canby (B. Nelson, Wente 7; G. Harding 4); Minneota (A. Hennen 15; Rolbiecki 9; M. Hennen 8).

Digs: Canby (Hunt 11; R. Harding 7; Rangaard 6); Minneota (A. Hennen 15; Rolbiecki 11; Tolk, Pesch 6).

Set Assists: Canby (P. Nelson 14; R. Harding 9); Minneota (Yost 29; Stassen 9).

Blocks: Canby (B. Nelson, Wente 1); Minneota (Frie 2).