photo by Jake McNeill: The Westbrook-Walnut Grove volleyball team celebrates after scoring the final point of their Section 3A South championship game against Russell-Tyler-Ruthton at Southwest Minnesota State University's R/A Facility on Thursday night.

This story will be updated with stats, quotes and details

MARSHALL — For the first time in decades, Westbrook-Walnut Grove is heading to the section championship match. The second-seeded Chargers held off the top-seeded Russell-Tyler-Ruthton Knights in the Section 3A South championship at Southwest Minnesota State University’s R/A Facility on Thursday night to claim the subsection title by scores of 25-20, 15-25, 25-19, 25-21.

“We all had nerves. I mean, you’re expected to have nerves when you come into a game like this. But really, I knew we had nothing to lose,” WWG outside hitter Natalie Wahl said. [RTR] had their heads high, they knew that they were the top seed, but we knew that we wanted it more than they did.”

“It’s very surreal,” WWG head coach Meghann Westover said. “I knew this group had the talent and the drive, but to watch their dreams come true is amazing… These girls don’t give up. The group of girls last year didn’t give up either, but this group just has a grit and drive and a lot of ability that just got put together at the right time.”

For RTR, the loss ends the Knights’ hopes of a title repeat after they claimed their first section and state championships last season.

“They’re a good team and we all knew it was going to be a gauntlet to get through this section,” RTR head coach Daynica Brown said, adding that it’s hard to lose when your team has big goals but that it’s also tome out of a section year-in, year-out when there are four or five teams in it that are ranked top 10 in Class A at some point in the season.

RTR scored the match’s first point but WWG responded with three unanswered points, capped off by an ace from Wahl, to surge ahead. The teams battled back and forth from there until a Charger hitting error gave the Knights a 7-6 lead.

Wahl and Riley Parker got a kill to give the Knights an 8-7 lead.

WWG retained its lead until an Ava Karbo block, a WWG side out, a Laken Baartman ace and another WWG error gave RTR its largest lead of the frame, 15-12.

Karbo blocks were a theme throughout the match as she finished the night with three. Brynn Borresen also had another two for RTR while Dilyn Werkman and Paisley and Sarah Thooft each finished with one.

The Knights maintained that lead up to 18-14. WWG called a timeout and, after talking things over, they controlled the remainder of the set.

A Wahl kill and Hadley Jenniges block injected some energy into the Chargers after the timeout and RTR called its first timeout leading 18-17. Another pair of kills from Wahl and Ross helped WWG get back on top and RTR called its last timeout trailing now 20-18.

The Charger run continued up to 8 unanswered points when RTR ended the drought, but it was too little, too late as a kill and a service ace ended the first with a 25-20 WWG win.

Wahl was a jack-of-all-trades to lead WWG to victory. Her 15 kills and 21 digs were both team-highs, and she was also often able to get RTR out of system with tough service. Ross and Liv Locke also contributed 19 and 18 digs respectively.

“They just know they’re willing to outwork the other team. They do get a little down on themselves sometimes, but all it takes is one good move for us and they’re right back in it,” Westover said of her group.

Jenniges finished with 39 set assists and spread the ball around evenly in the process. In addition to Wahl, Parker, Carter and Ross each tallied eight kills in the match.

Jenniges also notched a pair of ace blocks and a block assist in the match. Parker and Carter each added a solo block, with Parker finishing with two block assists and Carter adding one.

“I knew that they only had two hitters up, so I just knew where it was going to go, so I could go in between and get to it easier,” Carter set of the Chargers’ blocking efforts.

The two teams traded off points to start the second set before RTR snapped back into form as the top seed, rattling off 4 consecutive points to take a 6-2 lead and force a WWG timeout.

RTR steadily maintained a 4-point margin until one kill from Karbo and another two from Ava Guida gave them a 16-11 lead. While 5 points was the largest lead of the tightly contested set, WWG still didn’t let the Knights pull away, keeping it tight from there until they called a timeout trailing 18-13.

Paisley Thooft got the first kill out of the huddle and a WWG hitting error made the score 20-13. The lead only increased from there as RTR went on to take a 25-15 win to knot up the match at one set apiece.

Thooft had a monster hitting game for the Knights. While RTR struggled to get many of its hitters involved, Thooft finished the match with 22 kills. Brezlyn Buchert and Dru Ellefson tallied 24 and 14 set assists respectively while Karbo and Werkman recorded six kills each.

RTR started the third set on a 4-1 run but strong blocking propelled the Chargers to 5 unanswered points to take the lead. WWG never relinquished that lead, building it up to 12-6 when RTR called its second timeout. Yet, RTR never regained its footing and WWG won 25-19 to bring them within a set of victory.

“When we were going back and forth and we got a 2-point lead right in the back of the game, that’s when I was like, ‘This is ours. We’ve got this one,” Wahl said.

Despite the loss, Avery Schreurs put together a phenomenal back-row performance for RTR, totaling 30 digs in the match. Sarah Thooft and Buchert each added another 18.

Neither team led by more than a point early in the fourth set until a WWG hit off the net, a Buchert ace and a pair of WWG hitting errors gave RTR a 7-4 lead. Still, Leah Carter came back with a kill to prevent RTR from building any significant momentum.

Shortly thereafter, Parker came up with a kill to tie up the set and Liv Locke served up an ace to put WWG back in front 8-7.

The Chargers built up their lead to 12-9 but RTR surged right back ahead with a Baartman kill tying the set back up at 13-all.

A WWG hitting error gave RTR a 16-15 lead, its first since 7-6, and a kill on the next point prompted a Charger timeout trailing by a pair of points. Out of the huddle, WWG scored two in a row and RTR called its first timeout with the set all tied up at 17-17.

Jenniges served up an ace to give WWG the lead at 19-18 and a Wahl kill made the score 20-18 when RTR called its final timeout, sitting five points away from elimination.

From there, WWG controlled the final points of the set, eventually claiming the 25-21 win to advance to the section championship match.

WWG and RTR had met earlier in the season with the Chargers claiming a three-set sweep. Still, Westover said her team pushed that past victory to the side because both teams had grown and evolved over the course of the season.

“We knew that we could do it because of that, but we came in here expecting to play a different team and we did,” Westover said. “[WWG] just goes out there, they love the game and they love playing together. They want to play high-level volleyball and that drives them.”

WWG, now 23-4 on the season, will take on the winner of Minneota and Canby’s Section 3A North championship in the section title match on Saturday at 5 p.m.

Wahl said that the Chargers are going to look to bring even more energy and confidence into the section title match, while Carter added that the team will look to get in as much preparation as they can to put their best foot forward in the hope of advancing to state.

RTR finishes its season at 23-9. After graduating a lot of seniors from last year’s state championship team, the Knights had a younger roster this season and will return much of the 3A South’s top-seed’s roster. They graduate three seniors in Werkman, Schreurs and Pattison.

“We’re really excited about next years. These seniors set up these girls really well,” Brown said. “They were great leaders all year young, so with having a lot of 10th graders, it’s a deep bench. I sub a lot just because there’s so much talent that they’re using and mazimizing… It’s very exciting to see what the future will bring, but still bittersweet right at this moment.”