Independent file photo Marshall football coach Terry Bahlmann addresses his team after a 35-13 win over Hutchinson in the Section 2AAAA Championship on Nov. 1, 2024.

MARSHALL — The 2024 football season was one to remember for the Marshall Tigers. The squad won its first section title since its threepeat as 2AAAA Champions from 2015 to 2017, and won its first state tournament game since 2016. Managing the Tigers’ success was Terry Bahlmann, the Independent’s 2024 Coach of the Year.

“We tell our kids that individual honors come from team success, so this is a team award,” Bahlmann said. “I have great assistants to work with, they do a lot behind the scenes that doesn’t always get noticed, but a lot of credit goes to our assistant coaches and, of course, our players.”

Marshall was a team that had been knocking on the door for the past few seasons before breaking through as state champions this year. The Tigers won each of their first nine games in 2022 before falling to Hutchinson 52-30 in the section finals and then followed a 1-2 start to 2023 with a six-game win streak before falling to Hutchinson again in the section championship.

The two Tigers met in the section finals again this year, but things were different. This time around, Marshall hosted Hutchinson instead of the other way around and took advantage of having home field. Marshall scored each of the game’s first 21 points and ran away with a 35-13 win to flip the script and return to the state tournament for the first time in this current iteration of players’ careers.

Bahlmann cited the win in that game as one of his personal high points of the season. Beyond the final score and overcoming adversity against a team that had gotten the best of Marshall the last two seasons, Bahlmann said he was proud of his team’s physicality on both sides of the ball and its ability to run the rock in the game. Gavin Schaefer led the rushing attack with 234 yards on the ground while Mason Eickhoff added another 70.

Schaefer and Eickhoff were among the many players on the Marshall roster that earned postseason accolades this year. Schaefer was named the district’s Player of the Year while Eickhoff was also an All-District selection. The Tigers also had Jake Allex and JR Vierstraete named as the offensive and defensive linemen of the year, while Jack Meier was named the linebacker of the year. Derek Hisken was also an All-District player while Josh Kraft and Andrew Stelter each received honorable mention status.

While Marshall returned plenty of varsity experience across the board, Allex and Hisken headlined a particularly veteran group on the offensive line that set the tone for Marshall’s ground-and-pound offense.

“The offensive line makes us go. When we’re strong up front, we can do a lot of things,” Bahlmann said. “Jake and Derek really set the tone for us. They were good practice players. Even though Derek was beat up, he wanted to practice every day and throughout the season, I think he only had a couple of plays out with a major knee injury that he played through… When you’ve got good leadership like that, everybody follows.”

While the offensive line remained consistent with last year’s, Marshall made some major changes in the passing game. Kraft made the transition from quarterback to split end, while Levi Maeyaert took the reigns as the Tigers’ signal caller. The junior is the younger brother of Tyler Maeyaert, the Tigers’ quarterback in 2022, and seemed ready for the role from the start of the season.

“[The change] started in the summer. Josh couldn’t throw for a little bit because of baseball and a sore arm, and we looked at Levi there. Josh obviously has a lot of other skills, and he was willing to do whatever was best for the team, so we looked at him at receiver and then linebacker,” Bahlmann said. “He took to linebacker right away. Our kids are about team first, Josh was receptive to it, and I think it made us a better football team than we were.”

Coming into the season, the Tigers had lofty expectations. While they had fallen in the section finals each of the two seasons prior, the strong campaigns combined with large groups of returning talent inspired confidence for 2024.

“Our goal all along was to make the state tournament,” Bahlmann said. “We were close to Hutch the last couple of years, and really a year ago left a bad taste in our mouth. That was our focus. We tried to go one at a time, and keeping high school kids focused on that can be a challenge sometimes, but overall they did a great job all season.”

From the season’s first snaps, Marshall’s defense looked the part of a juggernaut once again. They only let one regular-season opponent score in double digits and shut out three of their eight opponents. Yet, they struggled at times offensively in the season’s early games, namely in a 20-14 loss to Waseca.

The Tigers trailed 13-0 five minutes into the fourth quarter when Gavin Schaefer punched in a pair of touchdowns to make the score 20-14. Marshall started to march down the field in the final minute with a chance to tie or go ahead, but a Waseca interception halted the Marshall rally to hand the Tigers their lone loss of the regular season. 

“After that, I think we focused up a little bit more on offense and cleaned some things up,” Bahlmann said. “Our defense was good all season, and we thought we had some explosive weapons on offense and once we got it rolling, we were pretty efficient out there.”

Marshall won each of its final five regular-season games from there to enter the section tournament as the No. 1 seed. In the first round, the Tigers edged past Willmar 20-6, marking the second time the Tigers beat the Cardinals over the course of the season after picking up a 33-7 win in week 2.

Playing Willmar is always a challenge because of the teams’ familiarity, Bahlmann said, noting that the Tigers and Cardinals have met five times in the last three seasons. Marshall won all five matchups.

From there, Marshall ran past Hutchinson to get to the state quarterfinals against Byron at East Ridge High School. The Tigers entered as the No. 3 seed to Byron’s No. 2, and had a travel disadvantage. Marshall’s commute was nearly three hours compared to a 75-minute drive for Byron.

Despite being new to the bright lights, Marshall looked prepared.

“The crowd that showed up for Marshall was a high point. Then, of course, the way we played Byron with the big goalline stand right before half was a play that will really stick out to me,” Bahlmann said of his memories of the game.

The Tigers led 7-0 at halftime after a big play from Meier put Marshall on the board. Byron had the opportunity to tie the game heading into the locker room, but a touchdown-saving tackle from Shep Jensen, a pass breakup from Owen Wilts, and a sack from Meier kept the Bears off the board. 

In the second half, Marshall pulled away to finish with a 21-0 victory in their first state tournament win since 2016. Trey Lance was the Tigers’ quarterback in their last trip to US Bank Stadium and most of this year’s team was only 6-10 years old at the time of Marshall’s last trip to the state semifinals.

While the run game was the heart of the Tigers’ offense all year long, they aired the ball out much more down the stretch than they did early on. Kraft and Meier made strides late as pass-catchers, as did Kieler Rhea. The offense became more versatile and, as a result, more dangerous.

“It all comes from our offensive line, once they got comfortable. Derek battled through a knee injury all season that a lot of kids would’ve just sat out on, but he wanted to do his best his senior year,” Bahlmann said, also noting the contributions of Aidan Mattison, Braylon Podratz and Eli Weedman on the line with Meier, Vierstraete and Logan Eickhoff at tight end. “We got some reps there and, just as reps go, everybody got more comfortable. Levi got more comfortable, we were able to do some more things. We knew our defense was going to carry us early, and it did, and our offense came around late in the year.”

The Tigers weren’t able to pull off the upset against No. 1 Becker in the state tournament, falling 28-7 in the state semifinals, but that shouldn’t take away from a year worth remembering for Marshall. The Tigers’ 10 wins is their second-most since 2011 and they got the individual accolades to match. The Tigers graduated a large group of seniors this time around, but Bahlmann has shown plenty that he knows how to lead a team to a quick reload.