Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall libero Kennedy Drake reacts after a point in the third set of the Marshall volleyball team’s win over New ulm in the 2AAA tournament quarterfinals at Marshall High School on Wednesday night.

MARSHALL — The top-ranked Marshall Tigers entered the first round of the 2AAA section volleyball tournament as the No. 1 seed and played up to expectations. The Tigers dispatched No. 8 New Ulm in straight sets — 25-12, 25-6, 25-6 — to advance to the section semifinals.

“It’s that time of year where you want to just keep building and building and every step you take becomes more difficult,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said. “As a player, you just need to elevate your game. I thought our kids, as the night went on, I thought we got better and better.”

Marshall led by as many as 13 points in the first set of the match. The Tigers held a 21-8 lead before the Eagles rallied behind some quality service from Gracie Linbo to cut the deficit to 22-12. Still, Marshall closed out the game with three straight points to claim the first set.

While Marshall seemed to have the momentum after the first set, it was New Ulm that came out strong in the second. The Eagles won three consecutive points to take a 4-3 lead and scored again after Marshall tied it up to go ahead 5-4.

“We started out with more energy, everybody was putting forth full effort and our service was really good at that point, so that helped us out,” New Ulm head coach Christine Skoglund said of the early lead.

From there, however, Marshall cleaned up fast. Kennedy Drake stepped up to the service line and led Marshall to 20 unanswered points and a 24-5 lead. The senior libero finished the night 30-of-30 from the service line with seven aces and seven digs, both team-highs. Only New Ulm’s Brooklyn Hagberg had more digs on the night with eight and Marshall’s Lydia Moore was the match’s only other player with multiple aces with three.

“She’s got a tough serve overall and when she gets that thing going, it’s really difficult for people to deal with,” Westby said of Drake. “I think during that stretch, we missed three serves early on and then I thought our kids were able to right the ship a little bit. I think we, in that first set, missed a total of five serves, but we played things up in sets two and three and it was a good opening match for our kids.”

New Ulm was able to break up the Tiger run with a point before the end of the set but Halla Casavan responded with a kill to end the game 25-6.

Malorie Anderson and Afton Hulke led the Eagles defensively at the net. The pair of seniors each had a solo and assisted block in their final match as an Eagle. Kenzie Olson also had a pair of blocks for Marshall.

“She [Anderson] had a lot of blocks and block touches that we needed, so she was definitely one that I felt came forth,” Skoglund said. “We really worked on a lot of blocking yesterday and so she really did what we needed her to do tonight,”

Marshall picked up in the third game where they left off in the second with a 5-0 run behind Reese Drake at the service line. Reese Drake finished the night 10-of-11 with an ace and a team-high 12 kills. Her five digs also tied her with Jayda Bednarek, Brielle Riess and Brooke Gillingham for second on the team behind Kennedy Drake.

The Eagles were able to score a pair of points to get back into the set but Marshall quickly pulled away for another 25-6 win.

Riess and Morgan Bjella contributed eight and seven kills on the night for Marshall while Hulke, Anderson, Erin Wise and Evelyn Friese each had two for New Ulm.

Photo by Jake McNeill
Brooke Gillingham (14), Morgan Bjella (3) and Brielle Riess (right) react after a Halla Casavan (18) kill during the Marshall Tigers’ straight-sets win over New Ulm in the Section 2AAA volleyball tournament quarterfinals in Marshall on Wednesday night.

Brooke Gillingham led the match with 23 set assists while Amber Lee led New Ulm with six.

New Ulm wraps up its season at 12-12 after losing seven of its last eight matches. They had ranked seventh in the conference in the QRF [Quality Results Formula] rankings before they were reseeded to eighth at the coaches meeting ahead of the postseason. The Eagles will graduate eight of their 14 players on the roster.

“I love this team. I think that we had a great group of seniors, they put full effort every time they’re on the court. I had so many different ways that I could set them up in rotations and they’re just so knowledgable about the game,” Skoglund said. “It’s going to be really hard to have them leave us next year. They’re very experienced, very knowledgable, so we’ll be missing them.”

Marshall (25-5) will now host No. 4 Willmar in the section semifinals on Friday at 7 p.m. Willmar is coming off a straight-sets win over No. 5 Hutchinson in the quarterfinals, taking down the other Tigers 26-24, 25-15, 25-14.

Marshall and Willmar met in their season-opener in Marshall on Aug. 24 with the Tigers winning 25-8, 25-17, 25-18. Still, Marshall isn’t taking anything for granted at this time of year.

“We played Willmar, but that was a very long time ago and they’ve changed some things since then,” Westby said. “You can pretty much throw that earlier match out the window. It’s a new season and we’re expecting a tough fight from whoever it is on Friday.”