Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm's Ashlyn Donner (6) tries to spike the ball around Whitney Schwartz (8) of Marshall Monday at New Ulm High School. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

NEW ULM — Marshall continued its dominance this year, picking up a sweep victory over New Ulm.

The Tigers (17-3) beat the Eagles (2-17) 25-6, 25-9, 25-16.

The Eagles struggled to contain the aggressive Tigers for most of the match, especially in the first two sets.

“When you face a team like this, there are two ways to look at it,” Eagles coach Zach Hansen said. “You either go out and battle, play hard and see what happens, or you just kind of play how I felt we played — at least in the first two sets. Just overwhelmed and didn’t rise to the occasion.”

Marshall took an early 11-4 lead in Set 1 to force a New Ulm timeout. The Tigers continued to play strong and took Set 2 with a 14-2 run to close out the opening set after the Eagles’ timeout.

Marshall opened Set 2 on a 9-1 run that was capped off on a kill by Paige Andries to force a New Ulm timeout. The timeout did little to calm the restless New Ulm squad as Marshall brought its lead up to 16-3.

The Eagles forced a few difficult Marshall hits and took 3 points back in a row to cut the deficit to 16-6. Marshall took 3 points back right after, however, to lead 19-6.

Marshall ended the second set in victory after a New Ulm hitting error.

The Eagles led 6-5 early on in Set 3 after a hitting error by Marshall. It was the first lead for the Eagles since the first set when New Ulm took the first point of the set.

The Eagles trailed 13-10 after a kill by Nora Windschill and a hitting error by Marshall. The Eagles later managed to snag a point away on a kill by Ashlyn Donner to trail 24-16, but Marshall took the final point and win in Set 3.

The Eagles have had their share of hard times this year, but Hansen is looking to get his squad to look past that and close out the season stronger.

“You have to have short memories,” Hansen said. “Nights are going to happen like this where we play a really good team. We’ve had this game on the calendar and we saw that Marshall was coming — now we’ve got another game against Fairmont tomorrow [Tuesday]. We have to just move past it — it is what it is — and be ready to play tomorrow.”

The Eagles were led by Sarah Longtin with 10 digs and Izzie Wolkow with eight set assists. Also for New Ulm, Windschill had three kills and Olivia Wick had four blocks.

New Ulm plays at Fairmont 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.