Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall volleyball players (left to right) Avery Fahl, Halle DeVos, Julia Fahl, Kyah Pinckney and Nora Holmgren celebrate after Marshall defeated Willmar in the Section 2AAA championship match at Redwood Valley High School on Wednesday. Marshall heads to Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul as the top seed in the Class AAA state tournament today, taking on No. 8 Big Lake at 5 p.m.

ST. PAUL — Winning at the state tournament has been the standard for Marshall volleyball for over a quarter-century now, and the expectation is no different this year. The Tigers enter the Class AAA state tournament tonight as the top seed, taking on Big Lake in the quarterfinals, and will look to make another deep run in pursuit of becoming the first program to reach 10 state championships.

Marshall kicks off its state tournament run at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul tonight at 5 p.m. The winner will face off against the winner of No. 4 Sauk Rapids-Rice and No. 5 Cretin-Derham Hall in the semifinals at 9 a.m. on Friday, while the losers will face off in the consolation bracket that same morning.

The Tigers have a long history of success in the state tournament. This will be the Tigers’ 34th state tournament appearance, dating back to the days of Dave Ahmann being the team’s first head coach in 1974. He led the team to its first state tournament appearance three years later and finished his 15-year tenure with 10 appearances and a runner-up finish in 1979.

Since then, the expectations for the team have only gone stronger each season. During the Dan Westby era, Marshall has reached the tournament 22 times. The team’s nine state championships with Westby at the helm are already the most in state history, not to mention another six runner-up finishes, but Marshall remains hungry for more as it attempts to be the first program to crack double digits.

That hunger is only increased by the team’s performance last season. Marshall enters the tournament as a No. 1 seed with a chip on its shoulder. The Tigers went into last season’s state tournament as the No. 2 seed behind Delano, but Delano was upset in the semifinals by Alexandria. While the result seemingly opened up Marshall’s opportunity to earn its 10th title, Alexandria still had some magic left in it, defeating Marshall in four sets to claim its second state championship and first since 1999.

Since that loss, Marshall has looked like a team on a mission this time around. The Tigers put together a 30-2 regular-season campaign and swept every non-Class 4A team it played. Its lone losses came against the two teams tied for the No. 2 spot in the final Class 4A coaches poll, Lakeville South and Eagan.

The Tigers also earned a win over Lakeville South earlier in the year when Marshall hosted its annual Southwest Challenge tournament. The win came alongside wins over Class 4A No. 8 Prior Lake and Class 4A No. 4 Chanhassen as the Tigers won the event for the first time since 2009.

While the win gave Marshall a taste of success, Marshall wasn’t ready to rest on its laurels after the win and will look to build on them starting tonight.

“We’re obviously proud of ourselves, but we just said that we don’t want this to be the highlight of our season,” Marshall middle blocker and setter Avery Fahl said after the tournament. “We want to do more and get better every single day.”

Big Lake, on the other hand, has had a far different path to the state tournament. The Hornets opened their season by losing eight of their first 10 matches and didn’t crack double-digit wins until Oct. 11, when Marshall had 24 wins and just one loss.

The Hornets have not been above .500 all season, entering the tournament at 13-17, but found a spark when it needed it most. Big Lake went into its Section 5AAA tournament as the third seed, sweeping sixth-seeded Fridley in the quarterfinals and second-seeded Totino-Grace in the semifinals. Taking on a top-seeded Zimmerman team that bounced in and out of the top 10 of the coaches poll over the course of the season, Big Lake battled its way to a five-set win and its first-ever state tournament appearance.

Beyond the Tigers’ history of winning as a team, Marshall has plenty of star individuals on its roster who have the hardware to prove it. Reese Drake and Avery Fahl each earned their second All-State selections on Tuesday night, while Brooke Gillingham earned her first.

Gillingham also has a pair of All-State Tournament selections under her belt, including one from her sophomore season with the team when the Tigers claimed their ninth state title, while Drake and Fahl each earned the accolade in the Tigers’ runner-up finish last year.

Drake finished the regular season with 393 kills and 46 service aces to lead the team in both categories, and her 257 digs trailed only libero Kezlyn Pinckney’s 271. Fahl and Gillingham split setting duties, logging 216 and 516 set assists respectively, and Fahl also contributed a team-leading 39 blocks, 293 kills and 162 digs.

Much of Marshall’s core from last year’s run to the state championship run has been here before. In addition to Fahl, Gillingham and Drake all being a part of the team’s 2023 title, Kezlyn and Kyah Pinckney, Laurel Ryks and Halle DeVos all played meaningful roles in the team’s success last year.

Still, the Tigers have continued to find new break-out performers over the course of the season. Sophomore Julia Fahl stepped into an outside hitter role for the team to finish the regular season with 231 kills. Nora Holmgren also carved out a role for herself at middle blocker, finishing second on the team with 31 ace blocks and 130 kills in her freshman campaign.

Once again, one of the top threats to the Tigers has been knocked out early as Delano — the only team other than Marshall to receive first-place votes in the final coaches poll — was eliminated in its section tournament. Still, Benilde-St. Margaret’s enters the state tournament as the No. 2 seed after knocking out the other Tigers, and Stewartville has had another strong season at 26-4 as the 3 seed. Marshall is not taking anything for granted this time around.

Tickets for all state tournament matches can be purchased on the MSHSL’s website, with adult tickets being sold for $17 and student tickets for $11. Live stats are also available online, while a live stream of the games can be found on NSPN.TV for a monthly subscription price of $12.