Photo by Jake McNeill The Marshall girls basketball team’s bench reacts during the Section 2AAA championship game against New Ulm at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter on Tuesday. Marshall begins play at the Class AAA state tournament today, taking on sixth-seeded Rock Ridge in the state quarterfinals at Maturi Pavilion in Minneapolis.

MINNEAPOLIS — After a one-year hiatus, the Marshall girls basketball team is back in the state tournament in 2025. The Tigers have a new look since their last appearance, with only junior guards Taleigha Bigler and Reese Drake getting playing time in the team’s last trip to Minneapolis, but still, the Tigers have big goals.

“We’re hoping that they’re able to do what they’ve been doing all year long, just giving us a lot of consistent play,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said of the Tigers’ backcourt duo. “Those two have done such a good job of helping make everybody else better, so we’re going to look to those two to do that, but we’ve got other kids that are playing really well right now. So if we can continue to do the things that we’ve been doing, we feel pretty good about where we’re at.”

In Marshall’s last state championship bracket matchup, the Tigers lost 52-43 to top-seeded Becker in the Class AAA quarterfinals. Bigler played 33 minutes in the game while Drake played 21, combining for 6 points and eight rebounds.

This year’s Tiger squad also features a pair of seniors in Paige Gillingham and Ali Pederson. As such, the Tigers have both a real ability to compete for a state title this year and have a bright future going forward.

Entering the tournament, Marshall earned the No. 3 seed with a 27-1 record on the season. Their opponent, sixth-seeded Rock Ridge, sits at 24-5 on the season after earning the Section 7AAA championship by defeating second-seeded Hermantown by a score of 73-54 in the section finals.

The win — headed by Lexi Lamppa’s 16 points and another trio of double-digit scoring performances from Anna Westby, Maija Lamppa and Liz Fultz — gave Rock Ridge its second consecutive section title. They’ll look to improve on their performance from last year’s tournament, in which they lost 67-50 to third-seeded Alexandria in the quarterfinals before placing sixth in the consolation bracket. Westby had a 20-point, 15-rebound double-double in the loss while Lexi Lampa added 17 points and Maija Lampa contributed 10 points with seven rebounds and four assists. Westby is committed to play basketball at Minnesota Crookston.

“They’ve got three very good players and we’re just hoping we can contain those three and maybe limit some of the things that they like to do, certainly on offense,” coach Westby said. “We’re trying to scheme for dealing with those three and hopefully that’ll pay off. We’ve spent a lot of practice time focusing on those three kids, so we need to find ways to slow them down.”

Still, this year’s team has been red-hot as it heads into the state tournament. Rock Ridge has won 17 of its last 18 games, with the lone loss coming to undefeated Class AA No. 1 Providence Academy on Feb. 1. The Wolverines’ other four losses came consecutively from Dec. 21 to Jan. 4 against undefeated Class AA No. 2 Crosby Ironton, Class AAA No. 9 Delano and No. 5 Alexandria, and Becker.

While strength of victories for the Wolverines has been a question at points, they aren’t without quality wins; Rock Ridge has defeated Class AA No. 8 Duluth Marshall and No. 9 Proctor, as well as Class A No. 2 Moutain Iron-Buhl. Still, Marshall remains among the toughest teams on the Wolverines’ schedule.

Marshall, ranked No. 2 in the final coaches poll while Rock Ridge was ranked No. 10, is 2-1 against ranked opponents this season. The Tigers claimed a come-from-behind win over No. 5 Alexandria, 75-70, in their season opener and beat No. 7 Hill-Murray 79-56 back in December as well, but took their lone loss of the season by a score of 59-56 to No. 3 Orono on Feb. 1. The Orono Spartans were upset by Benilde-St. Margaret’s 74-53 in the Section 6AAA championship, earning BSM the state tournament’s top seed.

The Marshall Tigers got a rare taste of adversity in the section championship against New Ulm, leading by just three points at halftime after trailing a majority of the first half. Yet, Drake and Avery Schneekloth each scored 20 points while Avery Fahl and Gillingham tallied 18 and 15, respectively, to help Marshall pull away after the break for an 80-53 win. Bigler also had 14 assists and 10 rebounds in the win.

“The further you go into these things, the better teams are going to be,” coach Westby said. “I mean, that just stands to reason. New Ulm had been playing probably their best basketball of the year heading into that section final and we got down, but our kids didn’t fret. They just came back and did what they do. We’ll have to wait to see what transpires [in the state quarterfinals] early on, but we need to get off to a better start than we probably did on Wednesday… Either way, our kids will be ready to go. They’ve been able to weather the storm versus a lot of good teams this year, so hopefully we  play 36 minutes of good basketball.”

Today’s state quarterfinal game against Rock Ridge is slated for 4 p.m. at the University of Minnesota’s Maturi Pavilion.