Photo by Jake McNeill Marshall doubles No. 2 member Eme DeMuth returns a shot during a Section 2AA team quarterfinal against New Ulm on Monday. The Tigers defeated the Eagles 4-3 and advance to the 2AA semifinals Friday.

MARSHALL — A pair of points each from singles and doubles matches gave the Marshall girls tennis team a 4-3 win over New Ulm in the Section 2AA team tournament on Monday.

Despite falling to New Ulm 4-3 when the teams met in the regular season, Marshall earned the No. 4 seed in the tournament and the right to host No. 5 New Ulm. Tigers proved the voters right by punching their ticket to Gustavus Adolphus College for the section semifinals on Friday.

Marshall dropped each of its first four matches to start the season and eight of its first 11, but caught fire to close out the year. Monday’s win gives the Tigers their fourth consecutive victory and five wins in their last six matches.

“We’ve been saying all season that it’s about the day-to-day progress of getting better, developing our consistency and getting more confident in our consistency,” Marshall head coach Alex Cleppe said. He noted that the team had five different lineups in the first five matches of the year, so figuring out lineups helped the team a lot down the stretch.

“Now that we’ve been able to do that, we’ve seen the progression of kids getting better and better. That’s really what we play for, to continue to improve and hopefully you get a good spot in the postseason to show that improvement.”

The Tigers had two seniors playing their final home match on Monday, with Emry Weller and Jazilyn Steinberg-Jones pairing up in doubles No. 1. The duo made the most of their final home match for Marshall, picking up a 6-4, 6-0 sweep of Everly Batt and Kaylee Evans.

“I think it felt really good,” Steinberg-Jones said with a laugh when asked how it felt to go out with a win.

“It’s kind of weird to think that this is our last match at home, but I think we played well and we ended it on a good note,” Weller added.

When the two faced off against Evans and Batt earlier in the season, the New Ulm pair swept Marshall’s duo 6-3, 6-1. Things were different this time around because Marshall’s top doubles pair was more effectively able to take their time and focus on their hits to minimize mistakes, Steinberg-Jones said, with Weller adding that the duo improved their communication in the second set as well.

Peyton and Eme DeMuth also gave the Tigers another doubles point in the No. 2 match. The pair of sisters, in their sophomore and eighth grade years, swept New Ulm’s Lydia Osborne and Maggie Joyce 6-3, 6-1 to give Marshall its fourth point to clinch the match.

In the singles matches, Brooklyn Mauch and Kathryn Coudron made quick work of their opponents, each clinching a victory in under an hour to give Marshall a pair of points to start the dual.

“We’ve been very consistent and just working harder to get consistent and work together,” Coudron said of the team’s progress over the season, adding that the group tried to keep things the same heading into the postseason after closing the regular season on a hot streak.

In the top singles match, Mauch swept Carmen Schotzko 6-1, 6-0. The win continues a sensational junior season from Mauch, who made the leap to the top singles slot after playing No. 2 or 3 doubles for the bulk of her sophomore season.

Coudron also earned a sweep of Natalie Fischer in singles No. 2, picking up a 6-3, 6-2 victory.

Getting off to fast starts was something the Tigers emphasized heading into Monday’s playoff match, Cleppe said, adding that seeing New Ulm so recently in a regular-season dual also helped the Tigers prepare.

Emry Jans and Julia Pafko battled their way to a third set against Brielle Evans and Eleanor Brathwohl in doubles No. 3, but couldn’t pull out the tiebreaker. The Tiger duo pulled out a 7-5 win in the first set before dropping the second 6-4, and lost 10-6 in the tiebreaker.

Freshman Kyra Bailey lost 7-5, 6-2 to senior Lillian Krai in singles No. 3, while Cora Medina lost 6-4, 6-3 to Avah Kruse in singles No. 4.

Marshall now sits at 8-10 on the season and heads to Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter (19-3) for the section semifinals on Friday at 9 a.m. The Cougars defeated Marshall 7-0 when the two teams met in Mankato on Aug. 29.

“They’re [Mankato East] a solid team, we know that, so we’ll just take these next few days of practice to try to get our girls in a position to compete hard on Friday,” Cleppe said. “This is what we play for. This is the time of year, we always love playing for the postseason.”