MARQUETTE — The home team wasn’t the best of hosts as Marquette Senior High School captured the title at its Redette Rumble volleyball tournament held Saturday.

The Redettes needed a full three games to come back and defeat Gwinn in the championship match, 23-25, 25-15, 15-9. Marquette also lost the opener in the semifinals to Negaunee before winning two in a row to advance.

At the end of pool play, Marquette and Gwinn split a pair of games and finished with two of the best records in the tourney, Marquette going 7-1 and Gwinn 6-2.

Both coaches were pleased with their team’s performance.

“It is awesome to have such an effort rewarded with the title to your own tournament,” MSHS head coach Mike Morgan said. “I believe we learned a lot about ourselves today by gutting out several very tough matches in both pool play and in the bracket play. We did not make our job easy, dropping the first set in both the semifinals and finals. In both cases we were able to bounce back to win the matches.

“I am so very proud of the team effort today with everyone contributing. We had two JV players step in and play large roles, Aspen Michelin and Emily Nichols. We settled in to a good rhythm at times and our defense really stepped up.”

“All in all, it was a great day … for our team,” GHS head coach Toni Roberts said. “We were using (the tournament) to practice our new lineup after losing one of our starters, (sophomore) Emily Curtice, to an ACL (knee) tear (on) Thursday. By the final match the girls were so exhausted; missing three girls from our team really limited the amount of subs I had.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the work they put in and they never quit. They showed great sportsmanship and drive the whole day.”

Marquette roared back to defeat Negaunee in the semifinals 23-25, 25-6, 15-3, while the Modeltowners pulled off a similar feat in the same round against Munising, losing the first set before winning the final two though scores weren’t available.

In pool play, the Redettes swept Westwood 25-19, 25-18; Ishpeming 25-20, 25-14; and Florence, Wisconsin, 27-26, 25-23; before the split vs. Gwinn, with MSHS winning the opener 25-18 and the Modeltowners taking the second game 25-17.

For Marquette, Michelin and Lauren Wilkinson totaled 29 kills over the 14 games played Saturday, while Mikaila Graham contributed 68 digs, Ellie Hicks nine blocks, Chloe Hale 96 assists and Taylor Myers seven service aces.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.