MARSHALL - Yellow Medicine East, unranked all season, gave Marshall all it could handle in their Section 3AA volleyball championship match Saturday, but the Sting couldn't string together a long enough rally in the fourth or fifth games, losing to Marshall 25-18, 20-25, 23-25, 25-14, 15-13 at Southwest Minnesota State University.
"(The Tigers) were the ones that were supposed to win and we knew they would elevate their play. And they really did," said YME coach Kirsten Tjosaas.
It took the Sting a little bit to get rid of the jitters in the first game, and Marshall didn't make it any easier with their precision passing and quick-set offense. The Tigers took advantage of YME's indecision at the net by either running a short set in the middle, which got past the middle blockers before they could set up, or by passing to the outside hitters so quickly that YME would many times have just one blocker in place.
"Obviously, we had a lot of nerves. We just needed to get warmed up and into the match. It was a new environment for us to play in," Tjosaas said.
The Sting solved that problem in Game 2 in a hurry. They served harder and attacked harder, which forced Marshall out of rhythm and allowed YME to set its defense.
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Anne Jepson gave YME a lift early with an ace block and a couple of kills and the Sting held leads as high as seven in the game. Marshall also had six service errors, which more than covered YME's winning margin.
YME even showed some resiliency in the third game after losing an 18-12 lead. Marshall came back to lead 23-21, so Tjosaas called timeout to rally her players.
"I told them that they had fought so hard for this game and for this lead that I didn't want Marshall to steal it away from us," she said.
The Sting responded with a Jepson kill to take back the serve and Aimee Johnson served out the game with help from a Macy McKay putback and a Jamie Baker kill to take a 2-1 lead.
"We knew what they were capable of," said Marshall coach Dan Westby. "We just didn't push them in games two and three. We stopped attacking the ball and you could just see the confidence building on their side."
YME lost its spark in Game 4 and Marshall took some of it back. Shay Birath served five straight points to put YME in a 21-10 hole.
In only its fourth five-game match of the season, the Sting started slowly, but were able to tie the score twice and take two short-lived leads. The second was on a McKay kill that painted the back corner to give the Sting a 13-12 advantage.
Marshall closed out the win with the last three points of the match.
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Marshall 3, YME 2
Marshall (23-6) 25 20 23 25 15
YME (22-6) 18 25 25 14 13
Marshall
Serving: Shay Birath 19-19-1, Kellie Ellefson 20-20-5 ... Setting (assists): Kayla Wallerich 31, Kelsey Deragisch 17 ... Hitting (kills): Anna Full 22, Rachel Westby 12, Wallerich 11 ... Blocking (aces): Full 4, Wallerich 3, Hope Weilage 2 ... Digs: Birath 20, Westby 18, Sara DeSaer 15, Wallerich 13
Yellow Medicine East
Serving: Jamie Baker 13-13-4, Stina Leiseth 18-19-2, Livi Jeseritz 12-13-2, Macy McKay 16-17-1, Darcie Listul 14-15-1, Aimee Johnson 15-16-1 ... Setting: Listul 140-148-40 ... Hitting: McKay 40-43-14, Jeseritz 29-33-12, Anne Jepson 21-23-10, Baker 27-27-8, Leiseth 21-25-4 ... Blocking (aces): Baker 4, Jepson 3, Jeseritz 2, McKay 2, Leiseth 2, Listul 1 ... Digs: Jeseritz 15, McKay 14, Johnson 10, Leiseth 8, Listul 6, Courtney Knudson 6, Jepson 2, Baker 2
