Photo by Jake McNeill: The Marshall volleyball team celebrates its eighth consecutive Section 2AAA championship in front of its student section after defeating Willmar at Redwood Valley High School on Wednesday night.

REDWOOD FALLS — Reese Drake’s 20 kills and Avery Fahl’s five blocks set the tone for the top-seeded volleyball team in its Section 2AAA championship rematch against No. 2 Willmar. The Tigers overcame a late deficit with 8 unanswered points for a 25-21 win, and came away with 25-15 wins in each of the next two sets to secure a sweep and their eighth consecutive section title.

“These kids have put in a lot of time and they’ve really been committed to this thing. You don’t make eight state trips unless you have kids that are willing to do that,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said. “This group’s been great. They’ve done everything we’ve asked, and come to practice every day and do the right things, so this is certainly well-earned.”

The two teams met in last year’s section final, with Willmar claiming the first set before Marshall rattled off three consecutive wins to return to state.

“You never know when you’ll get back to this position, so I think we just kind of wanted to go out there, give it all we had and have as much fun as we could,” Drake said.

Marshall called a rare timeout trailing 20-17 in the first set, and a block from Michigan State-commit Ellery DeBoer gave the Cardinals a 4-point cushion. That was the last set Willmar scored in the frame, however, as Marshall closed the set on an 8-0 run to complete the comeback.

After a strong start to the set, the Tigers’ passing was a big part of their mid-set struggles, something Westby attributed to Willmar’s quality of play. He noted that everything Marshall passed was around the 10-foot line, and that he felt that the team needed to try to get the ball moving a bit better in their favor to gain some offensive momentum.

“We were just like, ‘We’ve got to control our side of the net and control the controllables,'” Drake said of the team’s discussion during the timeout. “We can’t control their side of the net, so we just have to clean up ours.”

Marshall is a team that’s consistently confident in its skillset and the work that it puts in at practice, Fahl said, so she felt that even when the team was trailing, they did a good job of keeping a positive mentality and credited Kezlyn Pinckney’s service ace as something that helped shift the tenor of the moment in favor of Marshall.

A diving save from Julia Fahl helped start a Marshall run, eventually setting up an Avery Fahl kill on the point, and Avery combined with Halle DeVos on the next point to trim the deficit to 2.

Brooke hit a ball behind her head and looked as surprised as anyone to see it land for a kill, and back-to-back kills from Avery Fahl gave Marshall a 22-21 lead, its first since it led 15-12.

The Tigers’ momentum continued to flow from there, as a Willmar net violation, a Pinckney ace and a DeVos kill sealed the 25-21 win.

“Our offense really turned back on. I’m not saying that we were bad before, but we had a couple points where it was just scramble and we weren’t communicating,” Marshall setter Brooke Gillingham said. “We had a timeout, got ourselves together on the court as players, and we said, ‘You know what? This is done, we’re not giving them any more easy points.’… We gave them 8 unanswered because we just turned it on offensively. We got blocks, digs, and we did it together on the court and not as our little island.”

Drake finished the night with a match-high 20 kills while Avery Fahl added another seven. The two were also the team’s leaders in blocks, with Fahl tallying five blocks on the night and Drake adding another two. Julia Fahl and Nora Holmgren tallied five kills each.

“[Drake] really showed it in practice this week. She just took her play to another level,” Westby said. “She’s a very talented player, no doubt, but when she puts her mind to doing that, it’s pretty difficult to deal with her.”

For her part, Drake attributed her offensive totals to the team’s defensive plays that allowed Fahl and Gillingham to set her up with hittable balls and open things up at the net for her.

Fahl also had a major back-row defensive impact, finishing tied with Pinckney for a team-leading 16 digs. Gillingham also added 15 digs, and Fahl and Gillingham finished with 16 and 12 set assists, respectively.

“Ellery’s a really, really, really good player, and Willmar’s a really fun team to play because they’re a great team. We knew that one of her things that she’s really good at is dumping, so that’s what we practiced in terms of blocking,” Avery Fahl said of the team’s defensive effort up front.

To start the match, Marshall scored 4 unanswered points, including an Avery Fahl block on the game’s opening point and a Reese Drake kill.

Willmar responded with 3 straight points of its own before Marshall pulled ahead with a 7-0 run, including a pair of kills from Drake and a series of Willmar attacking errors.

The Tigers continued to bolster their lead, holding a 15-10 advantage when the Cardinals started to surge back into the set.

A block started the Willmar run, and Brielle Ogdahl and Nora Mitteness each swung for a kill to trim the deficit to a pair of points. Isley Ripperger served up an ace to bring the Cardinals within a point, and DeBoer came up with a kill and a block to give the Cardinals their first lead at 16-15 before a Marshall back-row violation capped off the 7-0 run.

For the senior class, Wednesday’s win marked a complete high school career of making the state tournament every season.

“I just like to think of it as such a team accomplishment for us as a program to keep going back to the state tournament, and we definitely have to tip our hats to coach Westby for running such a good program,” Gillingham said. “In practice, every single day, he’s pushing us to be better. We’re never taking a day off, we’re never staying comfortable, so it feels really special to be a part of this program that’s producing athletes like it is.”

Marshall’s first-set momentum carried over into the second game of the night. The two teams traded errors to start the frame, but Drake and Avery and Julia Fahl came up with consecutive kills to build a 4-1 lead.

Willmar trimmed Marshall’s lead down to a point, 6-5, before Marshall started to pull back ahead. Drake and Holmgren came up with back-to-back kills to start a Marshall run, and then Holmgren added another before Drake came up with two in a row to make the score 11-5.

A hitting error interrupted the Marshall run, but a Drake kill and a Laurel Ryks block got the Tigers right back on schedule, eventually resulting in a Willmar timeout after a Pinckney ace and an Avery Fahl kill brought the score to 17-9.

Pinckney served her third ace of the night immediately after the timeout and the Tigers inched their way to the set victory from there, with a Gillingham ace and kills from Avery Fahl and Ryks giving Marshall a 25-15 win.

Pinckney finished the match with perfect 18 of 18 service.

Marshall and Willmar alternated points to start the third set before a Willmar attacking error, a Holmgren block and a pair of kills from Julia Fahl brought the score to 7-4. The Tigers continued to surge ahead when Holmgren combined for a pair of blocks with Avery Fahl and Drake, and Avery Fahl slammed home a kill to prompt Willmar to call a timeout trailing 10-4.

The Tigers’ lead hovered around 6 points until Avery Fahl caught fire late in the set, coming up with a pair of big blocks and a pair of kills down the stretch before Drake closed out the match with a kill and a block for a 25-15 win.

DeBoer finished the match with 18 set assists and five blocks to lead the Cardinals, and her five kills trailed only Mitteness’ and Ogdahl’s eight. DeBoer’s nine digs were also second only to Ripperger and Jordan Blahosky’s 10 apiece.

Marshall improves to 30-2 on the season with the win and now prepares to head to its eighth consecutive state tournament. The Tigers enter the tournament with the most state titles of any program in Minnesota, and are looking to become the first team to crack double digits by earning their 10th this season.

“[Being a part of a 10th state title for Marshall] would be a huge privilege. When you think of female sports, they haven’t even been a thing for that long, so the fact that we get to make this many state trips to make an impact on Minnesota female programs and break those records is such a privilege,” Gillingham said.

The Class AAA state tournament will be held at Grand Casino Arena — formerly known as the Xcel Energy Center — starting on Nov. 5. The quarterfinal matches are slated for 5 and 7 p.m., with seeding to be announced later in the week.