Marshall, Delano advance to Class 3A volleyball championship game

Delano closed sets strong to beat third-seeded Byron 25-22, 27-25, 25-16 on Friday in the semifinals of the Class 3A volleyball state tournament at the Xcel Energy Center.

Second-seeded Delano (30-2) will play top seed Marshall (28-5) for the state championship Saturday night.

On Friday, the Tigers finished the first and second sets with runs of 11-4 and 5-1 to take a 2-0 set lead.

"Our setters did an amazing job of spreading the net," Tigers sophomore Kaelyn Wittwer said. "Our outside, Sydney Pink, did a really good job of finding that open space, using the block and finding lines. It really helped us get through those [first] two sets."

In the third set, the Tigers took a big lead early and held on. Coach Becca Rue wasn't surprised Byron was so stubborn.

"Everyone here is well-deserving of being here," she said. "These teams are all really good. We know that. We knew we had to stay focused and not just think that this was going to be easy."

The Bears (24-5) came unraveled for the majority of the third set but scored eight straight points near the end.

"It was pretty awesome getting eight points in a row," Bears senior Lauren Fjerstad said. "That felt really good. We wanted to show the crowd who Byron was, and I think we did that with that eight-point run."

Wittwer led the Tigers with 20 digs, and Pink had 11 digs and a team-high nine kills. Fjerstad led the Bears with 16 kills and 13 digs, and Kailani Schroeder had 32 assists.

Marshall overcame a challenge in the other semifinal, taking a four-set victory, 20-25, 25-19, 25-13, 25-18, over fourth-seeded Detroit Lakes.

Coach Dan Westby pointed out that Marshall, winner of the past two state titles and making its 32nd appearance at state, had played only one four-set match during the regular season. Trailing 1-0 presented a whole new challenge. "You have to figure out how to deal with it," he said.

The Tigers did, finishing the first set on a 10-3 run. They still lost that set, but they didn't lose the momentum.

"That's when we started to turn the corner," Tigers senior Morgan Bjella said. "We started to feel more comfortable on the court and felt like we can go now."

Marshall took over the game in the third set and responded to Lakers comeback attempts in the fourth.

The Lakers (26-8) played a nearly perfect first set. They hit over 20% and had just six attack errors and no service errors. On the other side, the Tigers hit 0% and had 10 attack errors and two service errors.

"We knew we had to come out tough," Lakers coach Rachel Solum said. "I think [they] were a little bit shocked by how we came out. We came out hard. That was a positive for sure."

Brielle Riess led the Tigers with 20 kills and 17 digs, Kennedy Drake had 18 digs and Brooke Gillingham had 48 assists. Grace Gunderson led the Lakers with 17 kills, Hailey Thielen had 18 digs and Ava Jones had 29 assists.