Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall defenseman Grant Hisken pursues the puck during a Big South Conference boys hockey game against Waseca, Saturday at Red Baron Arena in Marshall.

MARSHALL — The Marshall boys hockey team had no answer for the No. 16 Waseca Bluejays when the two teams met at Red Baron Arena for the Tigers’ regular-season finale on Saturday. The Bluejays netted three goals in the first nine minutes and never looked back, rolling to a 10-1 win over the Tigers.

Saturday’s game was the Tigers’ third in three days. Marshall also defeated Worthington 8-1 on Thursday and fell 8-1 to Hutchinson on Friday.

“It’s definitely tough playing three in a row and ending with one of the better teams in the state … but I was proud of the way our guys battled today,” Marshall head coach Michael Weiss said. “They had a lot more left in the tank than I thought they did, and they gave it their all.”

Griffin Storey scored an unassisted goal less than three minutes into the game to give Waseca the lead, and Jayden Gehring followed up with a second goal less than a minute later. Otto Schoenrock capped off the first period’s scoring another five minutes later, assisted by Storey, to give the Bluejays a 3-0 lead after outshooting Marshall 13-3 in the frame.

Jacob Allen got Marshall on the board early in the second, getting out on the break for an unassisted goal to cut the deficit to a pair of goals two-and-a-half minutes into the period. The goal was Allen’s 19th of the season, as well as his 31st point of the year.

Yet, the Tigers’ momentum abruptly came to a halt from there. Otto Schoenrock answered with a goal two minutes later to bring the lead back to three, and completed his hat trick to make the score 5-1 another five minutes later on the power play. Cash Lynch and Aydan Kath each also scored in the period to give Waseca a 7-1 lead heading into the third period.

Marshall was charged with four penalties for 19 minutes, including a 10-minute game misconduct on Easton Greenwood, in the game. Waseca capitalized with a pair of power-play goals, including one last dagger from Kath with four minutes to play in regulation.

Marshall went on the power play three times, but couldn’t convert. After Waseca was called for a tripping minor to put Marshall on the power play in the third period, the Tigers instead allowed a shorthanded goal by Storey to make the score 8-1.

McCoy Guenther saved 33 of the 43 shots he faced in goal on the night for Marshall while Josiah Schmidtke saved eight of the nine shots he faced.

The Tigers finish their regular season at 7-18-0 with Saturday’s loss, and its 6-8-0 conference record leaves the Tigers in fifth place out of nine teams in the Big South Conference. After the grind of three games in three days, Marshall now has over a week off before the section tournament starts.

“I think [the focus of the next week will be] just fine-tuning some of our systems and working on some of the details that have cost us in games,” Weiss said, “Just a lot of one-on-one battles, taking the body, playing rushes, [working on] our hitting and our passes, just some of the finer things.”

The Section 3A boys hockey tournament’s play-in round is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 17 while the quarterfinals are slated for Thursday, Feb. 19. The top six teams in the 10-team section receive a first-round bye while the seven-through-10 seeds will have to duke it out in the play-in round.