Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall forward Jack Meier (35) contests a jumpshot by Delano's Jake Schultz during the first half of a prep boys basketball game at Marshall High School on Friday night.

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MARSHALL — A late first-half rally gave the Marshall boys basketball team all the breathing room it needed when it hosted the Delano Tigers on Friday. Marshall put together a 20-6 run to surge ahead of Delano and the visitors never came back within single digits as Marshall claimed a 74-55 win.

A stretch of 5 unanswered points for Delano gave the visitors a 14-13 lead, their first edge since their first points of the game. Yet, with 11 minutes remaining, Marshall found its groove to surge ahead.

Cooper Mensink started the Tiger rally with a 3-pointer to answer, and then dished an assist to JR Vierstraete to maek the score 18-14 in favor of the Tigers when Delano scored the game’s first timeout.

Coming out of the huddle, Marshall hadn’t lost a drop of its momentum. Jake Schultz knocked down a 3-pointer for the visiting Tigers to make it a 1-point game, but the hometown Tigers responded with a pair of Braxton Koster 3-pointers, broken up by Mensink transition layup through contact, to bring the lead up to 9 points.

Mensink tried to find Franson on an alley-oop shortly thereafter, but the ball rattled out of the rim. Still, Josh Leibfried was there for the putback. Franson then made up for the miss by draining a 3 and an and-1 layup on the subsequent possessions to give Marshall its first double-digit lead of the night, 34-19 with 3:29 remaining in the half.

As the Tigers continued to roll ahead, Franson continued to make highlight reel plays. He knocked down a 3-pointer and slammed home a ferocious dunk on consecutive possessions in the final minute to bring the Tigers’ lead up to 18 points, and a Koster corner 3 at the buzzer sent Marshall into the locker room with a 46-27 halftime advantage.

Franson scored the game’s opening points with a layup, but Schultz answered with a 3-pointer for Delano. It was one of only two leads all night for the visiting Tigers, and neither lasted more than a minute.

Jayden Meister responded to Schultz’s go-ahead basket with a second-chance bucket for Marshall, and a Mensink transition layup made it a 3-point game in favor of the Tigers.

Levi Maeyaert hit a free throw and knocked down a layup off a well-placed bounce pass from Mason Graven to extend Marshall’s lead to 13-8 before Delano surged ahead for another short-lived lead.

Delano started out the second half with a 5-0 run but a JR Vierstraete layup and an alley-oop and-1 from Graven to Meister brought Marshall’s lead up to 53-32.

Delano slowly ate into the Tigers’ lead as the second half progressed, eventually hitting a 3-pointer with eight-and-a-half minutes to play to trim the Marshall advantage to 62-49.

A free throw trimmed Marshall’s edge to its thinnest Margin of the second half, 10 points, but Maeyaert answered with a free throw to make Marshall’s lead 66-54 with under five minutes to play.

After having strung together three consecutive wins, the Marshall basketball team now sits at 9-3 on the season. The Tigers will look to make it four in a row when they host Mankato West (3-8) on Tuesday at 7:15 p.m.