Marshall’s Brooke Gillingham (left) and Avery Fahl high-five each other as Reese Drake (2) walks back toward the huddle after a Marshall point during the Section 2AAA volleyball championship match at Redwood Valley High School on Wednesday night. The top-seeded Tigers defeated the No. 2 Willmar Cardinals in four sets to claim their seventh consecutive section championship.

MARSHALL — For the first time since 2021, the Marshall volleyball team dropped a section tournament set on Wednesday night. Despite trailing 1-0 after the first set of their Section 2AAA championship match against Willmar, however, Marshall rose to the occasion and picked up three consecutive set victories to advance to the state tournament for the seventh consecutive season. The match was decided by scores of 25-27, 25-21, 25-21, 25-8.

“It never gets old, that’s for sure,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said of the team’s return to state, chalking up the victory to his team’s time and energy that they put into their training. “Willmar’s got a great team, we feel fortunate to be moving on. We knew it was going to be a dogfight. We played them back and August and it was a much different match, and we knew that they were going to be ready tonight and they certainly were.”

The last time the Tigers dropped a section tournament set was also against Willmar when the Cardinals claimed the third set of the Section 2AAA Championship. Yet, Marshall defeated Willmar in four sets in that match as well.

Marshall faced some rare adversity in the first set. A Brooke Gillingham kill and a pair of Willmar errors gave Marshall each of the match’s first three points. The Tigers built their lead up to 11-5 before a Willmar timeout sapped away all of the Tiger momentum.

While Marshall showed some grit and hustle in its defensive back line, they couldn’t put away points. Willmar scored 4 of the first 5 points out of the break and eventually forced Marshall to call a rare timeout when its lead dwindled down to 15-14.

Out of the huddle, Willmar continued to rally with the set-tying point. Eventually, a service ace from Hannah Magnuson gave the Cardinals a 17-16 lead, their first of the match.

Willmar held off Marshall until the Tigers called a timeout trailing 21-18. The Tigers and Cardinals exchanged points out of the huddle but kills from Gillingham and Avery Fahl helped Marshall rattle off three unanswered points to retie the set at 22-22.

The two teams traded barbs again before a Fahl kill gave Marshall the opportunity to seal the set, leading 24-23. Yet, Nora Mitteness responded with a kill for the Cardinals to tie it right back up. The two titans of 2AAA fought back and forth until a kill from Ellery DeBoer gave the Cardinals a 26-25 lead, despite several diving digs from Halle DeVos. From there, a Drake hitting error gave the Cardinals the 27-25 win.

Willmar brought a balanced attack in the match with 12 kills from Gretchen Volk and another 11 and 10 from Ogdahl and DeBoer. DeBoer also led the team with 26 set assists while Magnuson added another seven.

Westby said that Willmar put a lot of pressure on the Tigers in the first set but added that he felt some of his team’s players stepped up beyond their normal capacity and that Marshall’s aggressive service helped them turn things around from there.

In the second set, neither team could pull away by more than a point until, tied 7-7, Marshall forced a pair of Cardinal hitting errors and got a kill from Reese Drake to make the score 10-7. From there, however, the Cardinals rattled off 4 unanswered points to regain the lead.

Willmar seized momentum when a pair of kills from Brielle Ogdahl and Mitteness and a Marshall miscommunication at the net made the score 14-12. They built their lead up to 20-15 and looked to be in position to take a commanding lead of two sets to none.

“Willmar was playing very well, but we just had to fight together and work hard for each other,” Fahl said, adding that there was never a point in which her confidence in her team’s ability to take the victory dwindled. “We play so well together and we know each other, and we know that we can fight back no matter what.”

Laurel Ryks injected some life into the Tigers with a forceful kill and Drake kept it going with another. Ryks then served up an ace and, after an Ogdahl kill, Gillingham and Kezlyn Pinckney got a kill and an ace respectively to make the score 21-20, prompting a Willmar timeout.

“I think that our passers did a really good job and that our setters were really good at delivering hittable balls. Everybody just worked really as a team,” Ryks said of the rally. 

While the Cardinals tried to cool off the Tigers by pausing play, Marshall was having none of it. Reese Drake got the tying kill and another from Pinckney that was too hot to handle gave Marshall a 22-21 lead, its first advantage since 12-11.

Drake’s fifth kill of the set made the score 23-21, forcing WIllmar to call its final timeout, but a Pinckney ace and another Drake kill gave Marshall the match-tying second set by a score of 25-21 after scoring 10 of the final 11 points.

Pinckney finished the match 18 of 19 from the service line with three aces while Gillingham and Drake added two and one respectively. While she didn’t earn an ace, Ryks also went 21 of 21 from the service line on the night.

Fahl and Gillingham were each effective in their ability to spread the ball around, with the Tigers’ kills coming fairly evenly before Drake took over in the fourth set. Fahl finished with 23 assists in the match while Gillingham added another 19. 

“Our passers were just passing dimes the whole night,” Gillingham said of the setters’ ability to spread the ball around. “Our defense was just on fire and our serve receive was perfect. We got aced very few times if we even got aced at at all.”

The Tiger serve receive limited Willmar to three aces on 78 attempts while also forcing the Cardinals into six service errors.

Gillingham added that assistant coach Alex Boddy and Westby had emphasized to her and Fahl that they need to spread the ball around to avoid running into Willmar blocks and that Ryks and Drake did a great job at finishing the opportunities.

At the net, Gillingham’s 13 kills were second only to Drake’s 23 and her three blocks were a team-high, ahead of Drake’s two. Fahl and Ryks also contributed 12 and six kills respectively in the match.

“Coach Westby always talks about thinking of something you haven’t done for your team the whole season or you need to improve on, and do it tonight,” Gillingham said. “In the locker room, we had a list of what are the reasons that we’ve built up that we’re going to win this match. One thing in my head was that… we’re going to work harder than that team and I thought I needed to really show up tonight. 

Gillingham continued to say that she was looking to cover the holes that she has in her own game and that she and Fahl talked about connecting well on the court to help the team find a new gear.

In the third set, Marshall jumped out to an early lead again when consecutive kills from Fahl and DeVos and a Drake service ace made the score 5-2 in favor of the Tigers. This time, however, Marshall didn’t let go of the lead.

The Tigers’ advantage steadily built up to 11-6. They kept their advantage between 2 and 5 points for the remainder of the set. 

Trailing 23-20 after committing a service error, Willmar called its final timeout. The Tigers made a hitting error after the break, but Willmar did the same and Gillingham sent home the set-winning kill for a 25-21 win.

Pinckney covered ground all over the court for the Marshall back row, finishing with 25 digs in the win. Drake and Gillingham each tallied another 16 to help keep Willmar’s hits and tips from finding the court. 

For the Cardinals, Magnuson finished with 19 digs while DeBoer and Ogdahl added 17 and 10.

The momentum of the second and third sets built to a blowout clinching fourth set. Marshall claimed each of the set’s first 5 points and the Cardinals never regained their mojo. A Drake kill gave Marshall its first double-digit set of the match at 15-5, prompting a Willmar timeout, but the Tigers only got stronger from there as they claimed the 25-8 win.

“I’m excited. We go to this place called Keys for breakfast… and that was the first thing I thought of. They’re like ‘We’re going to state!’ and I’m like, “I’m getting a caramel roll!” Gillingham said with a laugh. “Just knowing the exciting part of going and playing in the X, the energy that’s in the Xcel Energy Center is insane. 

“Knowing all that energy that’s going to be back there, we really just turn it into a higher gear going to state. We go from good to great, so going back there, we’ve got a pretty experienced team… We’re going to be prepared and we’re going to be ready for those teams.”

The Tigers improve to 26-6 on the season with the victory. Marshall will ride a five-match win streak when it kicks off Class AAA tournament play in search of its fourth consecutive state title on Wednesday. The Tigers have swept eight of their last nine state tournament matches over the course of the threepeat, the lone exception being a four-set win over Detroit Lakes in the 2023 semifinals.

The state tournament schedule and seedings will be announced on Saturday. Wednesday’s quarterfinals matches will be played at 5 and 7 p.m. at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Westby said the team will focus on just taking things one match at a time rather than looking ahead to the potential four-peat.

“I’m just so proud of my team right now. We played a really good game and it was really fun,” Audree Larson, one of two senior captains alongside Ali Pederson, said. “I think we’re all just ready for the challenge [of going to state].”