Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Cathedral’s Margo Finstad serves during a Section 2A Volleyball Tournament quarterfinals match against Cleveland on Thursday at Sibley East High School in Arlington.

ARLINGTON — After a bit of sloppy first set on Thursday night, the New Ulm Cathedral Greyhounds recovered and had the second-seeded Cleveland Clippers on their heels during both the second and third sets of Thursday evening’s Section 2A Volleyball Tournament quarterfinals match.

Ultimately the Clippers found their attack when they needed it, however, as they swept the seventh-seeded Greyhounds 25-18, 25-18, 25-20 at Sibley East High School.

The Clippers (24-6) advance to Tuesday’s 7:30 p.m. semifinals match at St. Peter High School where they will take on the No. 6 BOLD Warriors.

Cathedral ends its season 15-14.

The Clippers ended the regular season by winning the Tomahawk-Valley Conference title after defeating Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart, the top seed in the 2A tournament, and have been able to carry that momentum into the playoffs as they swept Springfield on Monday and now Cathedral on Thursday. Their attack against the Greyhounds was spearheaded by Taylor McCabe’s 17 kills and Melia Sathoff’s 12 kills, but it took a while to get going as the Greyhounds handed them easy points in the opening set on multiple errors.

The Greyhounds had a solid 4-point lead over the Clippers in Set 2, however, and then cut a 6-point deficit into a 1-point deficit late in the third set.

“I think we did a nice job of executing our game plan,” Greyhounds head coach Becky Wilfahrt said. “We got some blocks on them, and even when we didn’t, we got touches and they got frustrated and started trying to do some off-speed stuff. And in that, that kind of hurt us more than their actual attacks.

“But we made some adjustments that we needed to make. … We just weren’t able to get our offense going as much as we would have liked and I think that was the biggest difference.”

Shay Wilfahrt led the Greyhounds with 12 kills, eight digs and a block, while Ava Krueger had six kills, 13 digs and two blocks. Jayde Altermatt added six kills and two blocks, while Abbey Hillesheim had 11 set assists and two aces, Margo Finstad had seven assists and two kills and Ashlyn Hillesheim had eight digs and two aces.

A long rally more than halfway through the second set ended up with a big kill by Altermatt to put Cathedral up 17-13. But the Clippers answered with a kill from Sathoff ignited a 5-0 run that put the Clippers in front 18-7. Cathedral tied it up after that, but the Clippers got another kill from Sathoff to take the lead back.

The Greyhounds looked to have tied it up with a kill from Altermatt, but it was overturned to a double-hit violation, putting Cleveland up 20-18, which it then turned into a 6-0 run to take the second set.

The Clippers had a quick 4-0 lead in the second set, but the Greyhounds came to life late in the set after a kill from Finstad ignited a 4-0 run to trail 19-17. A block by Abbey Hillesheim had the Greyhounds down 19-18, and moments later a kill from Shay Wilfahrt had the Greyhounds down 21-20, forcing a Cleveland timeout. The Clippers put the set away after that, though, with a 4-0 run.

The Greyhounds will graduate five seniors from the team: Shay Wilfahrt, Krueger, Finstad, Sophia Netzke and Abbey Hillesheim. While the loss will be felt, some of the team’s younger players stepped up also on Thursday.

“I’m really proud of how Jayde played tonight for being the youngest one out there,” coach Wilfahrt said. “When she didn’t get blocks, she had good touches that gave us the opportunity to play the ball. We probably set her more tonight than we have and we’ve been really pushing to do that all year. She stayed really composed out there and had some nice swings. She served well for us and she came up with some big digs defensively at the end of the game, too.

“Ashlyn, too, she hustled her butt off back there and did some nice things defensively. She also had some nice blocks and some good touches for us, so a lot of positive things from the younger girls that were out there today, too, and hopefully these other girls kind of saw what the seniors built and they can go from there.”

Coach Wilfahrt also credited Finstad for working hard and gutting it out to play in this match despite an injured ankle that had her labeled as a game-time decision.