Photo by Jake McNeill Russell-Tyler-Ruthton libero Avery Schreurs (4) reacts after the No. 3 Knights score a point in their 3-0 win over Murray County Central in Tyler on Monday night.

TYLER — It hasn’t taken long for the Russell-Tyler-Ruthton volleyball team to establish itself as the class of the Red Rock Conference. The No. 3 Knights defeated the Murray County Central Rebels on Monday night in straight sets to clinch the conference title in their first season as a member of the conference.

“It’s very exciting, it’s been a very warm welcoming down here,” RTR head coach Daynica Brown said. “It’s been a lot of battle, too. They’ve all stepped up their play. Just grateful that we could do that. It’s an exciting opportunity to win the conference and go undefeated this year in the conference.”

The match was also RTR’s senior night. Brown noted that it was exciting to get such a win for the group’s final home match since they had been such a key part of the team for such a long time. Abby Carr has played five years for the team while Gabi Borresen, Tatum Hess, Camry Swanson and Ally Nelson have each played for another three.

“They put their time in and worked hard, so it’s nice to see the team just cap the last home game of the regular season with a win. To do it very decisively, it’s really exciting to see that for our seniors,” Brown said.

The first game of the match was the most competitive but the Knights still pulled away with a 25-16 win. The Rebels scored the first point before RTR went on a 6-0 run to take control. Still, the Rebels didn’t give up and clawed their way within a point to make the score 11-10. Still, the Knights went on another 7-0 run to regain control. From there, they held on to win the set.

“We had a good solid block off every time,” MCC head coach Katie Furth said of the team’s early success against the Knights. “Once you get a couple good blocks, it’s easy for the defense to fall into place behind them. If we can count on them to take away that part of the court, then the other four just need to split the rest and I think that was working well.”

Thea Schneider and Abby Loosbrock each had three blocks on the night for the Rebels while Emmi Peltola had another. In the back row, Kate Blankenship and Kate Slettum each had four digs while Peltola, Suttyn Schryvers and Kelli Miller each had another three.

“They were making us move a lot more. They were hitting those lines, hitting those back spots where we weren’t there… so they were pushing us, which caused us to shift, and we came back that second [set] and were able to work with it,” RTR assistant coach Ashlei Hoffmann said of the Knights’ first-set performance.

Carr got off to a hot start early and never looked back. She had four kills in the first set, a mark only one of her teammates eclipsed in the match, and finished the day with 13 kills and four blocks. Her two aces also tied Laken Baartman for a team-high.

For the Rebels, Schneider and Atalie Rosenbrook led the team with four kills each. No other Rebel had more than one.

The Knights carried that momentum into the second game, in which Laken Baartman opened with a 5-0 service run. The Rebels called their first timeout when RTR’s lead expanded to 9-2 and called another when the lead ballooned to 17-4. Still, the Knights had found their rhythm and couldn’t be stopped from taking the game by a score of 25-6.

“They’re a really good in-system team and we pushed the girls to get the center out of system. We felt we didn’t do that,” Furth said. “The game plan was kind of forgotten… we didn’t have many passes in front of the 10-foot line in that second set and it’s hard to come back from that.”

The Knights moved some of their players after the first set to account for the Rebels’ double blocks and spread out the ball to all of their hitters, Hoffmann said, a change which proved key in the Knights’ second-set dominance. Leading the charge in that distribution, Borresen had 23 set assists on the night. Miller and Slettum led MCC with seven and five respectively.

RTR had no shortage of defensive production in the win. Swanson and Dilyn Werkman each had three blocks up front for the Knights while Hess, Borresen and Baartman finished with 10, nine and eight digs respectively on the back line.

Game No. 3 was more of the same for the Knights. They jumped out to an early lead and, while the Rebels rallied late, hung on for a 25-13 win.

With the conference title locked up, the Knights (23-5) will now wrap up their regular season against No. 1 Minneota on Thursday. The Knights and Vikings met once before this season with Minneota taking a straight-sets win at the Class A Showcase. Minneota also ended the Knights’ season last year with a five-set loss in the 3A section championship match.

“It’s focus, that would be the actual word. Focus,” Hoffman said when asked what RTR needs to come away with a win on Thursday. “We really want to push on doing what we need to do to keep our stamina going and working hard to win that match.”

Murray County Central finishes its season at 10-13 and will now await seeding for the section tournament.

“We feel pretty good… We really have grown,” Furth said. “[We want to] just tighten things up. Namely, we’ve seen glimpses of really good things. That first set was fun to watch. If we can be that good defensive team all the time, we can play against most of the teams.”