Photo by Jake Przytarski Members of the Marshall volleyball team celebrate after winning their match against Minnewaska in the Section 3AA Championship game on Saturday at SMSU.

MARSHALL - In the wake of last season’s heartbreaking-defeat at the hands of North Branch in the Class AA state title game, the Marshall volleyball team has had ‘Unfinished business’ on its mind ever since.

Though there’s work left to be done, the Tigers checked off a huge milestone in their pursuit of another crack at a state title by defeating No. 6 seed Minnewaska in the Section 3AA championship game on Saturday at SMSU. With the victory, Marshall advances to its third-straight state tournament.

Senior setter Rachel Schwarz is thrilled to return to the state tournament and is thankful for the opporunity to get back to practice with her teammates.

“It’s awesome. It’s so much fun to go to state and just have that whole week with your team,” said Schwarz. “We’re so lucky and blessed that we can just go and have another week of practice. Some people’s practice isn’t as fun as the games, but we’re really lucky at this point to be able to still be practicing.”

Marshall coach Dan Westby agreed and said the team’s success ties directly to their compete-level during practices.

“They come in the gym everyday and they don’t shy away from any challenge we throw their way,” said Westby. “We always say the practices should be more difficult than the matches and I firmly believe that, and I think this group is ok with that. We’re excited that they get another opportunity to experience the state tournament. As a high school athlete that’s about as good as it gets.”

With big-game experience and ultra-competitive practices, the Tigers were unfazed by an uncharteristically slow start to the opening set that provided the Lakers with an opening to take the first three points.

From there, Marshall returned to form and exchanged leads with Minnewaska three times before capturing the lead for a final time at 20-19. The Tigers would close out the back and forth set with kills by Logan Sherman, Emily Meier and Jordyn Hilgemann en route to a 25-20 victory.

In set two, the Tigers were able to get off to a much better start but were unable to separate on the scoreboard from the Lakers early on. The tide began to turn midway through the frame when Marshall regained the lead at 9-8 after falling behind three times prior, and proceeded to go on a 6-1 run afterward to take a six-point advantage at 15-9. The Tigers closed out the set with a 10-6 run to take a 2-0 match lead.

Westby attributes the team’s sharper play in the second set to limiting errors and taking better care of the ball.

“We started off a little bit slow,” said Westby. “We made a number of errors in set one and then I thought we played a lot cleaner in set two and were able to take care of the ball a little bit better.”

With a single set victory separating them from a state-tournament berth, Marshall began the third frame determined to get the upperhand early on. The Tigers accomplished that goal in taking a 10-5 lead that they refused to surrender the rest of the way through. Paige Andries and Bria Morris dominated down the stretch with numerous kills to help seal a 3-0 match win with a 25-19 victory in set three.

Next up for Marshall (28-5) is a Class AA state quarterfinals matchup against unseeded Belle Plaine on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Xcel Energy Center. Marshall enters the tournament as the number two seed.

In preparing to accomplish the year-long goal, Westby has the team approaching the tournament on a game by game basis.

“This group’s been pretty good at taking things one match at a time and that’s not going to change,” said Westby.

Schwarz echoed Westby’s sentiments.

“Mr. Westby has scouting reports for us so I think it helps just that we focus on that game and learn more about those players and what we have to do each game,” said Schwarz. “He’s really good at keeping us focued and we just need to keep taking it one game at a time.”