Staff photo by Ari Selvey Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Morgan Mathiowetz (3) and Kailey Nelson (14) rise to attack the ball while Sleepy Eye’s Jaelynn Schauman (11) and Kayla Hecht (bottom right) move to defend during a Section 2A Volleyball Tournament match Monday at St. Mary’s High School.

SLEEPY EYE — For the third year in a row, 4-seeded Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s and 13-seeded Sleepy Eye Public clashed in the Section 2A Volleyball Tournament, and like the previous two seasons, it was the Knights that came out on top to advance in the tournament.

The previous two years, St. Mary’s came away with a 3-1 win, but this time it was able to deliver a convincing sweep, defeating the Indians 25-17, 25-14, 25-18 Monday at St. Mary’s High School.

“It’s always a big game,” St. Mary’s setter Josie Helget said. “You want to come out with energy. If you get down, you can lose it fast, so we made a point to come out with energy and really play our game and use what we can. Take care of our side, take care of the ball.”

Helget had 25 set assists and four aces for the Knights, who had seven aces as a team.

“I struggled with serves earlier this season and definitely last year,” Helget said. “That was my goal this season, was to improve my serve and be more consistent for the team. That was my personal goal, but always a goal for me to serve tough and consistent.”

St. Mary’s head coach Karri Hoffmann said the team had a focus on serving coming into the game, knowing they could find value with good serves.

“We knew coming in that serving would be a big part of our game,” Hoffmann said. “So we really focused on trying to get really good serves and making sure that we were ready to go. It payed off.”

Also for St. Mary’s, Morgan Mathiowetz had 10 kills and 10 digs, while Reese Hoffmann had eight kills and 10 digs. Amelia Schwartz added four kills for the Knights.

For Sleepy Eye, Sam Price had seven kills and two blocks, while Paige Haala had five kills and nine digs. Ava Kunkel had 12 assists and four digs.

Both teams came out of the gate with plenty of energy, with the two rivals battling to a 12-12 tie after St. Mary’s came out with an initial lead.

“I think they [St. Mary’s] came out relaxed, they played relaxed, they played like they were having fun,” coach Hoffmann said. “Something we’ve said since the beginning is that this group is very cohesive. They really play well as a team. When we get that energy going, they do very well with it.”

Sleepy Eye, meanwhile, matched the energy initially, but as St. Mary’s went on a 5-0 run to take a 18-14 lead in the first set and force an Indians timeout, that energy began to drain.

“The beginning, we came out strong, came out hot,” Sleepy Eye Head coach Sydney Geiger said. “Started down a little bit, but found a way to pick it up. Then it just ended, kind of declined from there. We had it for a while, but we just couldn’t find it again. That was the biggest reason I think that we couldn’t be consistent.”

A kill from Kunkel helped keep the deficit at to 21-17 for Sleepy Eye, but St. Mary’s finished out the set with a 4-0 run, highlighted by a kill by Schwartz, to take the game.

St. Mary’s pushed that momentum into Set 2, with Helget serving three aces as part of a 6-0 opening for the Knights. A timeout by Sleepy Eye stopped the bleeding as Jaelynn Schauman and Price each got kills for the Indians, but the Knights continued to push. A trio of kills by Reese Hoffmann and one by Schwartz brought the lead to 13-4 as the Knights widened the gap. Sleepy Eye got some relief with kills by Makayla Strong and Haala, but St. Mary’s continued to get points as well with a block by Reese Hoffman and a kill by Mathiowetz to put the score at 18-8. St. Mary’s took that lead to the end of the set, as the Indians were unable to return a pair of serves from Ella Pollard.

Sleepy Eye saw some success early in Set 3, getting the first point on a block by Price and getting a kill by Price to hold on to a 8-6 lead. St. Mary’s took command with a 11-1, with kills coming from Reese Hoffman, Helget and Mathiowetz. Sleepy Eye called a timeout as Haala got a pair of kills to stay in the game, but Mathiowetz helped push St. Mary’s to the end with three kills as the Knights completed the sweep.

Sleepy Eye ends its season with a 12-13-1 record after battling injury and illness.

“Really this season we overcame a lot,” Geiger said. “We had a lot of lineups we had to draw up between injury and illnesses and everything in between. I credit these girls a lot for their ability to adjust and adapt on the fly. Sometimes it was right before a game and I was like, ‘Hey, we have to switch a lineup because we have an illness going on here.’ So credit to these girls for being able to do that and still push through and play overall well.

“We ended the season just about .500, and credit to these seniors, they really picked up and stepped up this year I think. This year they knew they really had to and stepped up, and I am proud of all four of them for the work they put in on and off the floor.”

Sleepy Eye will lose graduate four seniors from this year’s team — Nora Coulson, Haala, Jace Schauman and Kayla Hecht.

St. Mary’s, meanwhile, improves to 22-5 on the year and will face 5-seeded Cedar Mountain Thursday at St. Peter High School at 7:45 p.m. in the quarterfinals of the Section 2A Tournament. St. Mary’s defeated Cedar Mountain in five sets in the two teams’ previous matchup on Oct. 8.

“We’ve got to play our game and stay composed,” Helget said. “We know we’re going to face some tough teams as we get farther into the playoffs. Just stay composed, have fun, play our game.”