Photo by Jake McNeill: Minneota’s Eden Meagher (center) celebrates with teammates after serving an ace during the first set of a Camden Conference volleyball match against Yellow Medicine East on Thursday in Minneota.

MINNEOTA — The No. 2 Minneota volleyball team closed out its regular season in style on Thursday, picking up a three-set win over Yellow Medicine East in Camden Conference play. The Vikings won the match by set scores of 25-16, 25-7 and 25-9 in their final tune-up before the conference championship match on Monday and the Section 3A tournament on Friday.

Service was one of the match’s deciding factors. Minneota finished the match with 12 service aces as a team, while YME finished with two.

“The girls did a good job of putting some power behind the ball and just being consistent with moving the ball around,” Minneota head coach Kaley Buysse said. “Where I was telling them to serve, they were pretty spot-on and just kind of moving the girls around and keeping the ball in play.”

Jaylyn Coequyt earned two of her four first-set kills in the game’s opening points to stake an early 3-1 lead for Minneota. Sarah Gruenes started to heat up with three kills over the next 5 Minneota points to increase the Vikings ‘ lead to 8-3.

YME’s defensive effort kept the Sting within striking distance for the bulk of the set, but the Vikings started to pull away after a kill from Lexi Stengel cut the Vikings’ lead to 10-7.

A series of YME hitting errors and an Eden Meagher ace helped spur the Vikings to a 5-0 run to pull away. After calling a timeout trailing 15-7, YME scored consecutive points before a Coequyt kill put the ball back in the Vikings’ court.

Minneota’s lead waxed and waned between 6 and 8 points before a pair of late blocks sealed the 25-16 win behind five Gruenes kills and another four each from Meagher and Coequyt. For their part, Sussner recorded 19 set assists with her eight digs, trailing only libero Abby Rolbiecki’s 11, and Gillund tallied 15 set assists and tied Gruenes with a team-high two ace blocks.

“I think our setters have been doing a really good job of moving the ball around. That’s one thing we’ve really been working on is just getting it to all of our hitters,” Buysse said. “We’re not just going to focus on one or two of our hitters needing the ball. It’s really important that we’re feeding all of our hitters and they’re finding ways to put the ball away, and that’s going to help us offensively and keep the other team working defensively.”

Minneota setters Libby Sussner and Sophie Gillund were adept at distributing the ball evenly over the course of the match, resulting in 11 kills each for Meagher, Coequyt and Gruenes.

The two teams traded the first pair of points to start the second game before Minneota pulled away with 8 unanswered points. Meagher led the run with a kill and three service aces while Coequyt added another pair of kills to make Minneota’s lead 9-1.

YME ended the drought with a kill from 10, but Leah Coequyt responded with a kill and YME called a timeout after a blocking error brought the score to 12-2.

“We talked a little bit about how we really need to make sure we’re executing what we’re doing on our side and not letting up and getting comfortable in the game,” Buysse said of her team’s improvement from the first set to the second. “It’s obviously a little different pace of a game, and we just want to make sure that we’re playing to our level and continuing to put the ball away.”

After the break, Jaylyn Coequyt got a block and a kill, with a Meagher kill in between and a Gruenes block and kill after to bring the lead to 16-2. The Sting broke up the run at 7-0, but Madison Minnehan immediately answered with an ace to make the score 17-3.

From there, YME couldn’t work itself back into the set as a trio of kills from Meagher, another pair from Gruenes and a combined block between the two sealed the 25-6 win.

Alana Almich and Bailey Mortenson ended the night as YME’s leading hitters with 11 and seven kills, respectively, building off Lexi Stengel’s eight set assists. Defensively, Ella Cherveny and Kourtney Peterson led the way for the Sting with 10 and nine digs. Bayli Sneller also contributed five kills and a trio of digs.

YME claimed its first lead of the night to start the third set, going up 3-2 before a service error put the ball back in the Vikings’ court. Gruenes started the go-ahead run for Minneota with a kill and Rolbiecki kept it going with consecutive aces to bring the score to 6-3.

After a Gillund block and a Gruenes kill, Minnehan served back-to-back aces again to bring Minneota’s lead to 12-4 when YME called a timeout.

The runaway freight train that was the Vikings’ offense continued to roll out of the huddle, with another pair of aces from Minnehan helping the Vikings to a 16-4 lead.

Gruenes picked up her 11th kill of the night to extend the Vikings’ lead to 11 points in the set, 17-6, and Minneota rolled to victory with Jaylyn Coequyt stamping out the 25-9 win with a kill.

Minneota caps off its regular season at 23-6 and next prepares to head to Prinsburg to take on Central Minnesota Christian (21-6) in the Camden Conference Championship match on Tuesday at 7 p.m. When the two teams met on Sept. 9, Minneota pulled out a 3-0 sweep by set scores of 25-22, 25-9, 25-13.

Heading into the section final, the Vikings are looking to continue picking up their tempo and improving their ball movement to put the hitters in a position to be effective from pin-to-pin, Buysse said. She added that the team wants to continue to stay disciplined in transition while maintaining an aggressive pursuit of the ball.

From there, Minneota earned a top seed and a first-round bye in the 3A tournament and will take on the winner of the North bracket’s 7-10 play-in match.

After closing out its regular season at 5-18, Yellow Medicine East will be competing in that play-in match, hosting Lac qui Parle Valley in Granite Falls on Monday at 7 p.m. for the right to take on Minneota in the subsection quarterfinals on Friday.