Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall seniors Reese Graven, Morgan Bjella and Kennedy Drake (left to right) come together on the court after the Marshall girls basketball team lost to top-seeded St. Peter in the Section 2AAA championship game at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter on Thursday night.

ST. PETER — A second-half scoring run from top-seeded St. Peter put an end to Marshall’s hopes of returning to the state tournament for the second year in a row. The Saints defeated the Tigers in the Section 2AAA girls basketball championship game on Thursday night by a final score of 58-51 to earn their first state tournament berth since 2019.

Marshall head coach Dan Westby said he felt his team performed well overall in their season finale but that St. Peter’s rebounding ability lived up to the concerns the Tigers had about them coming into the game. The Tigers finished the night with a 12-9 advantage on the offensive glass and a 34-32 advantage overall but some of the second-chance points Marshall gave up to the Saints were baskets they couldn’t afford to allow to the fourth-ranked team in the state, Westby said.

Morgan Bjella fought her way through contact for a tough and-1 and a Taleigha Bigler transition layup gave Marshall a 36-26 lead just under six minutes into the second half. The lead was Marshall’s largest of the game but the Saints didn’t give up that easily.

Rhyan Holmgren started the Saints’ run with a pair of free throws on consecutive possessions to cut the deficit to 6 points. Bjella responded with another old-fashioned 3-pointer but Annika Southworth hit a 3-pointer, Madison Kamm came up with a steal to set up another Holmgren layup, and Southworth blocked a Marshall shot to set Holmgren up with a pair of free throws to make it a 39-37 game in favor of Marshall with 10:47 to play.

Bjella finished the night with 15 points on 6 of 10 shooting from the field to lead the Tigers. Only Holmgren had more, the Minnesota State commit finishing the night with 29 points on 10 of 22 from the field and 9 of 10 shooting from the charity stripe. Holmgren’s 11 offensive rebounds also tied Taleigha Bigler for a game-high and her five offensive boards made her the only player on either team with more than two on the night.

Paige Gillingham was the only other player in the game to finish in double figures, scoring 10 points on the night.

Reese Graven interrupted the Saints’ 9-0 run with a baseline jumper but St. Peter responded with a pair of second-chance points to match Graven’s basket. Southworth then gave the Saints the lead with a 3-pointer. Holmgren then came up with a steal to set Southworth up with her second 3-pointer in as many possessions and Holmgren then hit a layup of her own to make it 47-41 when Marshall called a timeout.

With the Tigers’ spiraling, Gillingham came off the bench following the timeout and provided a spark to the Marshall offense. She hit 3-pointers on consecutive possessions to tie the game back up with 7:40 to play. On the defensive end, she stuffed Holmgren’s jumpshot and saved a loose ball on the offensive end by threading it between a defender’s legs. The ball went into the backcourt by the time Reese Drake recovered it but, after some discussion from the officials, the backcourt violation call was overturned because it deflected of a Saint before going back.

“I thought that was really big,” Westby said of Gillingham’s stretch. “We got a little stagnant there on offense and I thought Paige came in and gave us a spark… When we tied it up at 47-47, I felt really good about where we were at. Then they ran the same set play twice in a row and we got beat on it and kudos to them, they executed when they needed to.”

The two teams went scoreless for four minutes after Gillingham’s 3-pointers until Abbey Maloney gave the Saints their lead back with a bucket in close. Still, Gillingham finished a feed from Reese Drake to tie it up at 49-49. Holmgren responded with an and-1 but a behind-the-back bounce pass from Gillingham to Bjella kept Marshall within a point, 52-51, with just over two minutes remaining.

Yet, Marshall’s offense stalled out from there. The Tigers missed the front end of two 1-and-1s in the final minute and the Saints took advantage with 7 unanswered points to slam the door on the Tigers’ hopes of returning to the state tournament for the second year in a row.

“We have that 10-point lead and then they get back-to-back baskets…. Probably should have taken a timeout at that point but waited we waited, they got another basket and then we finally took one once they had a 3-point lead,” Westby said when asked when he thought the Tigers started to slip. “I thought their kids did a nice job of executing at key times and I think that was the difference in the game. They just executed offensively.”

Marshall senior Kennedy Drake had a terrific night as a distributor in her final game as a Tiger. Her six assists were more than twice as many as any other player in the game.

A Kylie Southworth 3-pointer gave the Saints an 11-9 lead halfway through the first half when Marshall started to heat up. Bjella eurostepped into a layup to tie the game for the Tigers and Reese Graven drained a go-ahead 3-pointer to give Marshall its first lead of more than a point. St. Peter tried to slow Marshall’s momentum with a timeout but the Tigers forced the Saints into an inbounding violation and Taleigha Bigler grabbed an offensive rebound for a putback layup to make the score 16-11 in favor of the Tigers with seven minutes remaining in the half.

Holmgren hit a layup and Madison Kamm came up with a steal and a pair of free throws to tie the game up again at 19-19 with 3:08 on the clock. The Saints had a go-ahead opportunity after Annika Southworth came up with a steal but Bjella held strong in the post to get a stop on Maloney.

The Tigers made the Saints pay for the missed opportunity. Kennedy Drake beat a defender with a head fake, drove to the rim, and dropped a pass into Graven for the go-ahead shot. A Reese Drake putback basket and a Gillingham layup then allowed the Tigers to go into halftime with a 25-21 lead after the first 18 minutes of play.

Kamm and Holmgren got the Tigers off to a hot start early with consecutive baskets before Bigler responded with a 3-pointer for Marshall. The Tigers ended up needing to sit Bigler early in the half after she picked up a pair of quick fouls.

The Saints finished the night with a 10-11 advantage in the turnover battle led by three steals from Kamm.

Marshall finishes the year at 21-9, one win fewer than their 22-11 mark last season. After graduating eight seniors after last year’s section championship run, the Tigers entered the season unranked before ascending as high as No. 6 in Class AAA. They graduate Bjella, Kennedy Drake, Graven and Halla Casavan after this season.

“We’re going to miss those kids. They battled hard, they did what they needed to do, and next year we’re going to have two seniors so it shrinks down again,” Westby said.