Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Kaylee Hunter (center) spikes the ball as Lauren Hoffmann and Sydney Windschitl of Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s defend Thursday at MVL.

NEW ULM — Despite it being an early Tomahawk Conference volleyball matchup, Minnesota Valley Lutheran and Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s battled on Thursday night as if it were the end of October.

Despite the Knights forcing a fifth set at MVL high school, the Chargers pulled out the win in five sets, winning 25-18, 18-25, 25-17, 22-25, 15-7.

Maddie Pearson shined for the Chargers, collecting 47 set assists and 39 digs, while Mara Weisensel had 22 kills and added 15 digs. Emma Nelson also had a nice night for MVL with 14 kills and nine digs, while Abbie Riederer had nine kills, 14 digs and three aces and Lily Mohror had seven kills and seven digs.

The Knights got nine kills, 15 digs, 12 set assists and three ace serves from Madison Mathiowetz, while Sydney Windschitl had eight kills, 12 digs and four ace serves. Also for the Knights, Lauren Hoffmann had 14 digs and four ace serves, while Allie Labat had 20 set assists, seven digs and three kills.

Trailing 2-1, the Knights trailed early in the fourth set 9-6 after a block by Mohror. They took a 10-9 lead, however, after back-to-back ace serves by Reagan Severson. The lead changed hands four times after that, with the Knights pushing their lead to 24-20 late to force an MVL timeout. MVL got a pair of quick points out of its timeout to force a Knights timeout, but Mathiowetz dumped the ball over the net for the set point, forcing the fifth set.

A kill each by Labat and Windschitl had the Knights ahead 3-2 early in the fifth set before the Chargers answered with a 5-0 run that was capped off on a kill by Mohror to lead 7-3. After giving up a late point on an attack error, the Chargers got a 4-0 run to win the match, benefiting on a kill by Nelson and three late St. Mary’s errors.

“I think we played pretty consistent from an offensive standpoint, our attack was pretty good,” MVL head coach Amy Pearson said. “Game 2 we kind of struggled with our serve receive and that took us out of our attack mode. And then in Game 4, we just missed a string of serves in a row and that really sucked the momentum out of our sails. I told them, ‘Hey, we showed a lot of grit in Game 4.’ We were down and they didn’t give up, got the momentum back on our side, almost took Game 4. That’s the kind of stamina, grit, determination we’re going to need later in the season, so it’s great to develop that now.”

The first set saw the Chargers open up an 8-0 run to lead 17-8 in the middle of the set, with Weisensel and Nelson each adding a pair of kills during the run. The Chargers led by as much as 10 in the first set, 19-9, after Nelson and Weisensel each added a kill.

The second set saw the Knights get an early 3-0 run to lead 10-6, getting a kill each from Severson and Mathiowetz and an MVL attack error during the run. The Knights pushed their lead to 15-9 after a kill by Trista Ibberson and a block by Windschitl, and despite the Chargers getting back within 2, 18-16, the Knights ended the set strong to tie the match at 1-1.

The third set saw the Chargers get another 8-0 run early on for a 14-6 lead. Nelson had four kills during the run.

After a late ace serve from Mathiowetz, MVL got 3 straight points to end the set.

The Chargers (7-4, 2-0) travel to Lake Crystal for a 7:15 p.m. nonconference meeting with Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial on Monday, while the Knights (8-5, 1-1) host Springfield at 7 p.m. Tuesday in conference action.