Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall guard Cooper Mensink (left) drives toward the basket during the first half of a prep boys basketball game against Willmar on Tuesday night at Marshall High School.

MARSHALL — In its final game of the regular season, the Marshall boys basketball team put forth a dominant wire-to-wire win against Willmar. The Tigers led by 22 points at halftime and as many as 31 by the end of the game before settling for a 75-55 win. The victory gives Marshall a nine-win increase from its previous regular-season win total.

“We’ve had a lot of ups and downs through this, but really the key thing that we’ve been telling each other is just stick together,” Marshall forward Jack Meier said as the team heads into the postseason. “This is basically a new season… This is another journey at sections. I know it’s not going to be easy, but we have to just take every game one step at a time to see how far we can get.”

The Tigers never trailed in the game, getting ahead early when JR Vierstraete assisted a Mason Graven floater, Jayden Meister followed with another bucket and Graven got a steal near the half-court line before assisting an Alex Franson dunk.

Vierstraete led a well-balanced first-half scoring effort from Marshall. The Tigers went into the locker room leading 38-16 behind 10 points from Vierstraete, 7 each from Franson and Cooper Mensink and another 6 from Graven. Avery Christensen led Willmar with 7 points at halftime.

Vierstraete went on to finish as the Tigers’ leading scorer with 16 points on 7 of 10 shooting, while Mensink and Franson added another 12 each. Christensen was the lone Cardinal to finish in double figures, scoring 26 points on 8 of 17 shooting.

As a team, Marshall shot 52% from the field and made 35% of its 17 3-point attempts, while Willmar shot 48% from the field and made 42% of its 24 attempts from long range.

With Willmar’s hopes for a win already looking bleak at the break, Marshall quickly stomped out any hopes for a comeback when Vierstraete, Mensink and Meister opened the half with consecutive baskets to bring Marshall’s edge up to 28 points.

Points in transition were key to Marshall’s early success. As Marshall steadily increased its lead in the game’s early minutes, consecutive Cardinal turnovers led to Mensink layups to extend Marshall’s lead into double figures, 19-9, with 11 minutes remaining before the break.

The Tigers finished the game with a 6-16 advantage in the turnover department, led by three steals from Franson and another pair each from Graven, Mensink and Oliver Voigt. Meister and Graven each also accounted for a block on the defensive end.

“We were disciplined. That was our game plan, just stay disciplined,” Graven said when asked what allowed the Tigers to be so effective in getting in transition.

The Cardinals called a timeout after Marshall’s lead got to 10 points and Cooper Schnichels came out of the break with a quick 3 points. An intentional foul was assessed when the Cardinals tried to snag Franson from behind after he came away with a steal. 

The Tigers were given two shots and the ball; Franson made one of the two shots and Marshall couldn’t capitalize on the extra possession, but Franson came up with a steal on the defensive end to set up a Vierstraete basket and bring Marshall’s lead back to double figures.

Vierstraete continued to heat up from there, hitting a putback layup and a corner 3-pointer on consecutive possessions to bring Marshall’s lead up to 27-13 with eight minutes left in the half, the largest margin of the game at the time.

The Tigers were outrebounded by the Cardinals 29-27 and 8-6 on the offensive glass. Voigt’s five total rebounds were a team-high while Vierstraete and Meister each grabbed a pair of offensive boards.

Marshall concludes its regular season with an 18-8 record, marking a nine-win improvement from last season’s 9-18 finish. The Tigers will now await their seeding for the Section 2AAA tournament to be announced this weekend, with the section quarterfinals slated for Wednesday, March 5 at the home site of the high seed in each matchup. 

Marshall is the No. 2 team in the section according to the Quality Results Formula (QRF), trailing only Mankato East. Last year, Marshall was the last seed in the seven-team section and lost 88-54 to Mankato West. Now, the shoe is on the other foot.

“Last winter, I probably wasn’t expecting us to be this successful, but then we’re practicing before the season and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got a really good shot of doing this thing,'” Meier said. “We just all bought in and we really believed in each other.”