Photo by Samantha Davis. Marshall's Reese Drake sets up the offense in the second half against Tea Area (S.D.) at the Holiday Classic at Southwest Minnesota State University on Saturday. Drake finished with 16 points in the Tigers' 68-37 win.

MARSHALL — The No. 1 Marshall girls basketball team closed out 2024 on a good stride as it took down Tea Area (S.D.) 68-37 in dominant fashion behind strong defense and aggressive perimeter shooting at the Holiday Classic at Southwest Minnesota State University on Saturday. The Tigers continue their perfect 11-0 start to the season.

Taleigha Bigler led all scorers with a double-double of 23 points with 10 rebounds, and Reese Drake finished with 16 points and seven rebounds.

“A win always feels good,” Drake said. “Every day, we go into practice knowing we need to make sure we are still getting one percent better.”

Marshall shot 48% from the field and a strong 53% from the arc, going 8 for 15, and limited the Titans to just 27% field goal shooting and an 18% 3-point shooting mark.

Along with Bigler and Drake, both Avery Fahl and Ali Pederson finished with 8 points apiece and Avery Schneekloth followed with 6. Bigler had a team-high four 3-pointers.

Marshall came out firing on all cylinders, and never let up off the gas. With an all-around balanced team effort on both ends of the court, the Tigers built up a 16-point lead by halftime and continued its hot shooting through the game’s entirety and never allowed the Titans to come within reach.

The Tigers put the game away in other aspects beyond shooting, including 15 assists and 33 rebounds, 25 of which were from defensive boards, to Tea Area’s five assists and 21 total rebounds.

“We are a very unselfish team, and we always are looking to make that extra pass and find that open cutter or shooter on the wing,” Drake said.

The game went to running clock with five minutes to go after Marshall built a 35-point advantage.

The Titans have gotten a later start to the season, and have played just three games ahead of Saturday. Marshall on the other hand, had a week off for holiday break before it returned to the court Friday evening with a 20-point win over Jackson County Central in the first of the two-day tournament.

“This was a good team for us to play, they [Tea Area] play a little bit like we do. They play a full court game, and they’ve got a lot of speed and quickness. A lot of similarities between our two teams,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said. “We were looking forward to having this opportunity to play this team.”

Marshall came out with a fast-paced offense and occasionally ran a full-court press to force a few turnovers.

“We do that [press] mainly to get the other team to go faster than they want to,” Drake said. “It helps us get those other touches that you wouldn’t get to start in the back court.”

The Tigers forced 23 Titan turnovers, and only committed 11 themselves.

Drake got the ball right from tip off for an easy layup and Marshall started the game on an 8-0 run. The Titans were held scoreless for the first three minutes until they hit a corner 3-pointer.

Schneekloth and Pederson added in another pair of field goals in Marshall’s early run.

Tea was able to cut into a 12-8 deficit with another 3-pointer, but Marshall took over from there and didn’t allow the game to get within 4-points again.

After a string of a few hard fouls called on both teams, Bigler made two free throws. She then followed it up with a wide open 3 from the top of the key to eclipse a double-digit 21-9 lead.

Bigler continued her offensive consistency in a fastbreak, taking on three Titan defenders while crossing over in the lane to beat past them for a right-handed layup. She had a team-high five assists on the night as well.

Bigler also finished with 26 points in Friday’s win, and ended the tournament between the two days with 49 points all together.

The half ended as Tea Area hit a 3-pointer, as Marshall went into the locker room up 31-15.

“There’s a couple things we talked about at halftime. We felt we needed to try to do a better job of taking it [the ball] away, and that’s [from] their drive to the basket,” Westby said. “I thought there were too many times where they were able to drive to the basket, and I felt like we needed to take that away.”

Bigler had 15 first half points, followed by Drake’s 6.

The second half was raining 3’s for Marshall, who hit six of them through the final 18 minutes.

Paige Gillingham opened the half with a fastbreak layup, and Drake hit a 3-pointer on the next possession to get the perimeter shooting started.

Gillingham also finished with a team’s second-best seven rebounds.

Pederson and Bigler then hit back-to-back 3’s to give the Tigers a 42-20 lead.

Marshall grabbed its 30-point advantage at 55-25 after Kezlyn Pinckney made a short jumper off an inbound play with just under 10 minutes to go.

The 3’s continued to drop, along with interior shooting, and the game moved to running time at the six-minute mark, as Westby began to give reserve players some game time as well until the final buzzer.

Marshall has a week off and will look to protect its win streak in the new year when it next travels to take on Waseca (1-9) on Jan. 4 at 2:30 p.m.

“We want to try and rest up a little bit, because after the first of the year, there really isn’t much of an opportunity to breathe,” Westby said. “Get rested up this week, try to sharpen a few things up and then get ready to go.”