ABOVE: Martin County West’s Emily Anderson (9) goes for a kill during a Tomahawk-Valley Conference crossover volleyball match Monday at Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop High School. Photo by Ari Selvey/New Ulm Journal.

WINTHROP — Martin County West played a strong three sets to sweep Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop 25-14, 25-13, 25-13 in a Tomahawk-Valley Conference crossover volleyball match.

“They have a very significant side-out force with number nine [Emily Anderson],” GFW head coach Imia Mages said. “They do a nice job of utilizing her in all aspects of the front row and the back row. They run a few different hitting options. Not so many high balls to ones and twos, but they run some slides, they run some quicks, and that just makes them a really effective team.”

MCW head coach Kayla Zehms said her team came of the bus with energy, which helped them stay strong throughout the match.

“We’re on the road now here for a while,” Zehms said. “So we have a mindset of coming off the bus ready to play. Then we just start from the beginning. Have an intense warmup here for 20 minutes, making sure we utilize every kind of tactic to get us in game form.”

The Mavericks also had a strong service game, recording only once service error while collecting eight aces as a team.

“That is always our focus, to make sure we have very few service errors,” Zehms said. “Because that’s one thing we can control. Does it always work out that way? No. But we hope so and that’s what we game for and that’s what we go for. We practice a lot of serving and we talked about it in our pre-game speech too.”

Anderson led the Mavericks with 10 kills, eight digs and a block, while Gianna Chase had eight kills, eight digs and two aces. Maddie Carlson added eight kills, seven digs and three aces, while Emily Schettler had 21 set assists, nine digs and two blocks.

For the Thunderbirds, Trinity Stearns had 12 kills and seven digs, while Natalie Ahlbrecht had 15 set assists with seven digs and a block. Cheyenne Schmidt added 10 digs for GFW.

The teams played each other even early in Set 1 until the Mavericks went on a 8-1 run, led by kills by Carlson and Chase, to take a 16-8 lead. MCW continued to build a 21-12 lead before GFW called a timeout. Three kills by Carlson ended the game with a 25-14 MCW victory.

MCW continued the momentum into Set 2, with a pair of aces by Chase setting the Mavericks up with an 11-4 advantage. GFW scored 3 of the next 4 points to cut the lead to 12-7, but MCW went on a 6-1 run through a Thunderbird timeout to take an 18-8 lead on a kill by Anderson. Despite a pair of Kills by Stearns late in the game, the Mavericks went on to win 25-13 on another kill by Anderson.

Once again, the Mavericks started strong in Set 3, with kills by Anderson and Chase leading to a 10-3 lead. GFW clung on with help from a kill by Madalyn Lee, but MCW continued to build its advantage with a pair of kills by Carlson, leading 18-8. GFW went on a quick 4-0 run, finished of by two kills by Stearns, but MCW responded with a 7-1 run to finish out the set and the match.

MCW (7-4) hosts Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther on Thursday, while GFW (0-3) hosts Sleepy Eye to open conference play on Tuesday.