Photo by Sam Thiel The 2021 Marshall volleyball team includes front row (L to R): Megan Wegner, Ashleigh Steinbach, Maysa Gillingham, Lexie Bednarek, Lauren Wherry, Grace Ehlers, Caitlyn Christenson and Cassie Hoover. Back row (L to R): Taylor Ariasola, Abby Panka, Leah Jones, Brooke Andries, Tessa Gannott, Anna Bucher, Morgan Bjella and Brielle Riess.

MARSHALL — The Marshall volleyball team saw plenty of success despite the pandemic-shortened schedule last season, going 11-0 and winning the Big South Conference championship. This year, MHS will look to replicate that success and make another deep postseason run under coach Dan Westby.

Despite losing seven players to graduation, Marshall will have a lot of experience coming back, including six seniors. They will be led by Tessa Gannott, Maysa Gillingham, Megan Wegner, Ashleigh Steinbach, Caitlyn Christenson, Cassie Hoover, Leah Jones, Brooke Andries and Lexie Bednarek.

Westby said during the first couple of weeks of the season, they’ve been playing more in scrimmages as well as working on their passing and overall defense.

“We’ve been playing a lot which is kind of uncommon for us this time of the year and the reason we’ve been doing that is it’s been really competitive with different positions on the floor,” Westby said. “We’ve been playing a lot, working on passing and defending and our kids have been working hard and doing a lot of good things, so if we can continue to do that throughout the season, who knows.”

This season, things also change in that there will be four classes instead of three. Westby said their section alignment will be similar to their basketball one, which will be equally as challenging.

“It’s a new thing; with Minnesota going to four classes, things change for us in terms of our section alignment. It’ll be more like our basketball alignment where we have the Mankatos and Willmar and Hutchinson, so it’s going to be a tough section,” Westby said. “If you look at the state rankings, Marshall, Willmar and Hutchinson are all ranked in the Top 5, so it’ll be very competitive.”

Westby said an area of strength for their team is their experience, which they will look to rely on a lot, especially in passing and serving.

“If you look at our experience, we need to play that as a strength and then just serving and passing,” Westby said. “We should be strong in both of those areas because we’ve got a lot of kids back that have served and passed for us last year so that should be an area we need to hang our hat on.”

Westby added an area they will monitor is the cohesiveness of their team.

“I think you always need to have a team that melds well together,” Westby said. “It’s not really a concern, but I think it’s an area that we’ll keep on an eye on and make sure our kids are fighting for each other. If that happens, there’s no end to what we could potentially do.”

Marshall will start the season on Thursday at home against Willmar at 7:15 p.m. Going into the season, Westby said he’s looking forward to getting to work with his players each day and watching them improve.

“I think we’ve got a good group of nice kids and when you have a group like that, it’s a lot easier to come into the gym every day for practice,” Westby said. “They’re a fun group to be around.”