Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall outside hitter Brielle Riess (6) reacts after a point during the Tigers' four-set win over No. 4 Detroit Lakes in the Class 3A semifinals on Friday morning at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

MARSHALL — The Marshall volleyball team overcame a rare slow start in the Class 3A semifinals on Friday morning to capture a 3-1 win over Detroit Lakes. The Tigers now will compete for a state championship against Delano on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.

“We came out pretty flat and, to Detroit Lakes’ credit, boy, they took advantage,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said. “You could just see the momentum building on their side of the net. They started doing everything really well and we had a number of hitting errors. Just not the start we wanted.

“We felt like we served and passed okay, it was just in the other phases of the game that felt like we weren’t doing very well at that point. Kind of pulled ourselves out of it in sets two and three and kind of flipped the script a little bit.”

The first-set loss marked the first time all season Marshall dropped a game against a Class 3A opponent and just the second time this year they haven’t swept a best-of-5 match, the other being a 3-1 win over Class 4A Moorhead on Oct. 7. All-state right-side hitter Morgan Bjella did not play in the Moorhead game.

“When we’re playing the towns around us, I feel like we can just go through the motions because they’re not the best, but I feel like that was really good for us to have more competition and see that for us,” Marshall defensive specialist Jayda Bednarek said of the first set.

It was errors that doomed the Tigers in the first game. Detroit Lakes jumped out to a 4-0 lead on four Marshall attacking errors. Avery Fahl stopped the Lakers’ run with a kill but Grace Gunderson responded with a kill of her own to keep momentum on Detroit Lakes’ side.

The Lakers’ lead ballooned to 14 points and eventually they led by as many as 12, 22-10.

Gunderson had six kills in the set while Rylee Johnson had another five, leading the Lakers to a .226 hitting percentage in the frame. For the Tigers, Bjella led the team with four kills on a .375 hitting percentage in the first game. Yet as a team, Marshall had just 10 kills on a .000 hitting percentage. Bjella went on to finish the match with 13 kills and her .370 hitting percentage was the highest of any player with more than five attempts.

While Marshall got off to a rocky start, they closed the set well. After trailing by 12, the Tigers went on a 9-1 run to get within four points. Detroit Lakes closed out the set with a pair of kills by Johnson for a 25-20 win but the Tigers appeared reinvigorated.

“We started out slow and the coaches always say to build momentum for th next set so that we have energy and we know that we can fight harder for our teammates,” Bednarek said.

“We came back. We just kept playing our game. That’s all we could do at that point, just fought for each other,” Bjella added. “We just needed to keep fighting for each other and that’s what helped us out.”

Marshall does want to win in three sets whenever possible, Westby said after Wednesday’s quarterfinal win over DeLaSalle. Still, being faced with adversity never hurts either.

“The team we played today’s a very good team. We knew that coming in. We had an opportunity to watch them a few times and the two teams playing right now, Byron and Delano, two quality teams. So we’re going to have to be ready to go,” Westby said. “We just can’t afford to get off to a start like that and just give away that many points. I mean, we’re down 14-4 at one point in that first set, we just can’t do that. You can only do that so many times, you’ve got to learn from it and hopefully it won’t happen again.”

While Detroit Lakes led wire-to-wire in the first set, the second set was a back-and-forth affair throughout. The game included six ties and six lead changes. It wasn’t until Marshall was trailing 10-7 that they started to take control.

Reese Drake started the Tiger run with a pair of kills and, after Helena Daggett got a kill for Detroit Lakes, kill from Bjella and Fahl and a Laker hitting error gave Marshall a 12-11 lead.

Marshall kept the momentum going and went on to win the set 25-19.

Brielle Riess came alive in the second set with eight kills, the highest single-set total of any player in the match. She went on to finish with a match-high 20 kills, a block assist and an ace. Her 17 digs also trailed only Marshall libero Kennedy Drake and Detroit Lakes libero Hailey Thielen’s 18 in the match. Reese Drake also had 13 digs while Bednarek added another 11.

Riess and Grace Gunderson traded kills to start the third set with the teams tied at 1-1. That would be the last time the game was tied; Marshall jumped out to an 8-2 lead and never looked back in the 25-13 go-ahead victory.

Bednarek attributed the change in momentum to Marshall’s effective passing.

“I think just delivering the ball to the hitters so we could be aggressive, I feel like we kind of let lose and started actually hitting the ball and putting it where they weren’t,” Bednarek said.

Marshall setter Brooke Gillingham was particularly effective in her ability to distribute the ball during the set; her 14 sets in the frame were her second-highest mark of the game (she had 15 in the fourth set) and everyone seemed to get involved. Riess and Reese Drake each had five kills, Fahl had four and Bjella had another three. Gillingham finished the match with 48 set assists and just two errors on 135 attempts.

At points during the match, the Detroit Lakes student section started yelling chants to target specific Marshall athletes. To the credit, the Tigers remained composed and handled business.

“They’re trying to get in your head. They’re trying to get at you. Use it as motivation,” Bjella said. “Use it as motivation to go harder and to hit the ball harder and to get that dig. They’re trying to get in your head, just don’t let them. Use it for motivation.”

While Marshall appeared to have all momentum heading into the fourth set, Detroit Lakes wasn’t ready to go home yet. The teams traded points early and neither team was able to pull out even a 3-point lead until a Marshall attacking error put Detroit Lakes up 11-8.

That lead didn’t last long. Marshall called a timeout and a Bjella kill, Kennedy Drake service ace and Detroit Lakes hitting error tied up the match at 11-11.

Staying hot, a kill from Fahl, two from Reese Drake and another from Morgan Bjella extended the Tiger lead to 15-11. Two more Laker hitting errors and a Bjella kill later, Marshall had put together a 10-0 run and drained Detroit Lakes of its timeouts.

Still, the Lakers persisted. They went on a 7-1 run of their own to get the deficit to just a point, 19-18. From there, however, the Tigers locked in. Reese Drake and Riess got consecutive kills to give Marshall a three-point lead. After a Laker hitting error, Brooke Gillingham got a kill and Reese drake served an ace to set up match point. Fahl went for the kill and got it, sealing a 6-0 Tiger run and a 25-18 match-clinching victory.

Fahl, a sophomore who led the Tigers in block this season, finished the match with nine kills on 20 attempts. When asked about her hitting success on the night, she credited her teammates’ energy pushing her to do better on the court.

“One thing we really appreciate about her [Fahl] is she’s just gotten better and better as the season has gone on,” Westby said. “She’s very athletic and does a lot of good things… She was one kid I didn’t feel like got rattled regardless of the situation.”

Marshall (29-5) enters the state championship for the third consecutive season. While they already have more state titles than any other program, a win would give them No. 9 and their second three-peat of the Westby era, the first of which came from 2011-2013 in Class 2A.

“There certainly is an expectation there. Whether that’s fair or unfair, it is what it is,” Westby said of the team’s return to the finals. “Every team is different… we had eight seniors a year ago when we were here and most of those kids played a lot, so it’s a different cast of players. But they’ve all had the opportunity to watch those kids ahead of them and they see what those kids do and they want to do the same thing. I think it’s just something that they want to do and I’m glad they do it.”

Gunderson led the Lakers with 17 kills in the match while Johnson was second with nine. The pair of seniors each also contributed a pair of aces and a solo block in their final match.

“I’ve never been this close with teammates I’ve had in my life, but I guess it comes naturally because we’ve been playing together for so many years,”Johnson said. “Every year we just get close and I think state even brung us closer.”

“We’ve all grown together and we fight together ant that’s just an amazing feeling to get these wins together. Even when we lose, we’re doing it together and that’s the biggest part of it,” Thielen added.

Marshall will face off against No. 2 Delano on Court 1 at the Xcel Energy Center on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Delano has compiled a 30-2 record to date this season. The beat out Northfield, then ranked No. 3 in the state, in their section championship match on Nov. 2 and swept third-seeded Byron in the state semifinals on Friday. Kaelyn Wittwer led Delano with 20 digs in the match while Sydney Pink had a team-high nine kills. Grace Danielson and Lexie Champeau finished with 13 and 10 set assists respectively.

“We know it’s going to be a harder game, so we have to come out with a lot of grit and energy to push through,” Bednarek said.

Detroit Lakes finishes its season at 25-8. They’ve continued to improve year after year, falling in the section quarterfinals four seasons ago, then the section semifinals, then the state first round and now the state semifinals.

“We’re definitely headed in the right direction. I think it goes to show that the seniors have been now on this varsity team for three, four years, so that’s huge,” Detroit Lakes head coach Rachel Solum said. “That just helped us develop into the team that we are today. I’m super proud of them.”

The Lakers will play No. 3 Byron in the third-place game on Xcel Energy Center Court 1 Saturday at 4:30 p.m.

“I think we’re ready to go and get some blood tomorrow, finish it off with a win,” Johnson said.