Photo by Samantha Davis. Marshall's Reese Drake is gathered by her teammates as the crowd holds up signs celebrating her reaching 1,000 points in the second half against Sioux Falls Jefferson Thursday night. Drake finished with 20 points and is the 11th player in Marshall girls basketball history to reach the milestone.

MARSHALL — Reese Drake became the 11th player in Marshall girls basketball history to join the 1,000-point club as the No. 2 Tigers finished up their regular season with a 78-43 win over Sioux Falls Jefferson (S.D.) Thursday evening. Drake needed 15 points to reach the accomplishment and finished with 20.

“It’s definitely a good milestone to accomplish, and the best part was to get to do it with my teammates. I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that without them,” Drake said. “I knew I had to be getting close, coming to the end of the season, but I didn’t know for sure.”

Drake earned her 1,000th point midway through the second half with a drive to the basket to put Marshall up 63-29. The crowd erupted with orange signs saying ‘1,000’ as the team and Marshall head coach Dan Westby congratulated the junior guard on the court.

“She has been a very solid player for a long time. Not only do we rely on her scoring ability, but there’s so many other things she does on the floor,” Westby said. “She just makes everybody better. I think that’s probably her biggest strength.”

Thursday was also potentially the final time Marshall’s two seniors Paige Gillingham and Ali Pederson played in the Tiger gymnasium. Wetsby subbed the duo out with about two minutes left, as the crowd applauded them off the court and they hugged their teammates down the bench.

“They both have been extremely loyal to the program, and it was a good way for them to go out tonight with a big win,” Westby said. “They just have a tremendous amount of dedication, and anything we’ve had scheduled in the summer, they have always been here.”

Sioux Falls came out with intensity, and pressured Marshall with a full-court and zone defense for the first several minutes of the game. The Tigers committed some turnovers, but were able to find its footing and return the defensive favor to help build a 25-point lead by halftime. The Tigers cruised their way to the final buzzer from there.

“We practiced to prepare for their [Sioux Fall’s] pressure, but until you get in the game, the speed is just different. They’re a good team,” Westby said. “They’ve got some athletic kids and they play a tough schedule, so no surprise that it took us a while to adjust. But, I thought once we did, we did a lot of good things.”

Taleigha Bigler finished with a game-high 24 points behind 73% field goal shooting and went 4 of 5 from the perimeter. Gillingham also tallied 15 points. Drake also distributed an impressive nine assists and nine rebounds.

Marshall has set itself up in a good position to go on a potentially deep postseason run. It wrapped up the regular season with just one loss to its name with a recent visit to No. 2 Orono in Delano on Feb 1., falling 59-56.

“These guys have done such a good job. You look at our schedule, and I think there’s only a couple nights where we really didn’t win at the top of our game,” Westby said. “These kids have just done a great job all year.”

Although it took a few minutes to get going, Marshall didn’t allow much of an opportunity for Sioux Falls to come close in handing them a home-court loss, which the Tigers have been able to protect all season.

“We knew that they [Sioux Falls] were going to be a competitive team coming into the game, so we knew we had to play our game and play hard,” Drake said.

Both teams full-court pressed one another, with Sioux Falls also played in a zone defense.

Marshall’s 44-19 halftime lead was powered by 12 points from Drake and 11 from Bigler.

Bigler got the night’s first basket after taking the ball up the court herself, dribbling between two defenders in the press and finding a wide-open lane for a layup.

Gillingham was also being left open in the Cavalier’s zone defense, and got back-to-back buckets after cutting to the low block.

Marshall forced a few early turnovers, but also made a few mistakes themselves to allow the game to be tied 8-8 early.

The Tigers began to turn things around and found their pace with an 8-0 run after Drake hit a pair of 3-pointers from the same spot at the left wing to put Marshall up 16-8.

“I thought we settled down a little bit, they pressed and then fell back into the zone, and we haven’t seen much of that at all this year,” Westby said. “I thought once we adjusted, we were fine, and we made a nice push and got that 25-point lead at halftime. That certainly made things a lot easier.”

Marshall also was outrebounding Sioux Falls to help gain control.

The Tigers finished with 36 rebounds to the Cavaliers’ 28.

The Tigers continued to give up a few turnovers throughout the game, but Sioux Fall’s offense couldn’t find a rhythm to take full advantage of Marshall.

Marshall finished shooting 47% from the field and the arc, and limited Sioux Falls to 33% from the field with no perimeter makes.

Marshall, which prides a lot of its game on tenacious defense, got its bench and the crowd up on its feet after forcing a shot clock violation midway through the first half.

The Tigers continued to show its versatility as Fahl shot a 3-pointer, followed up her own shot for the rebound, swatted the ball back up to half court where Reese saved it. She passed the ball over to Bigler at the left wing for a deep 3 to put Marshall up 38-14.

Sioux Falls was held scoreless for several minutes at a time, as Marshall went into the locker room with a large 44-19 edge.

Marshall did not allow a slow start in the second half, and came out dominant on both ends of the court.

Gillingham hit a 3-pointer to open the second, followed by a pair from Bigler to help give Marshall a 30-point lead at 55-25 in the half’s first three minutes.

Not long after is when Drake hit her milestone, with nearly everyone in the gym ready to stand up as the ball went flawlessly through the hoop.

“I wouldn’t trade it [the Marshall community] for the world,” Drake said.

The Tigers remained strong the rest of the game and forced running clock to take place, finishing up the regular season in good style.

Marshall (25-1) will next await seeding for the Section 2AAA tournament, to be announced on Saturday. The first seed will earn an automatic bye into the semifinals.

Quarterfinals will begin on Feb. 26, to be played at the higher seed’s high school. The semifinals and championship game will be played on March 1 and March 6 at the Gustavus Adolphus Lund Center in St. Peter.

The Tigers will be looking to return to the section title game, and fight for a spot in the Class 3A state tournament. They most recently played at state in 2023.

“Our mindset is always getting one percent better every day,” Drake said. “Our other mindset is that there’s always someone out there better than you, so we have to keep working hard.”

Last year, Marshall was given the two-seed in the section tournament after finishing the regular season 19-8 overall. Making its way to the championship, the Tigers fell to No. 1 St. Peter, at the time, 58-51.

“Everybody is 0-0. It’s a whole new season,” Westby said. “We’ve got to be ready to go.”