LE GRAND — One of East Marshall’s two seniors went to the sideline with an apparent injury, but the Mustangs dealt with the adversity in stride.

The sophomore substitute’s play might even have put a little pep in East Marshall’s last few steps.

The Mustangs made it three wins in as many meetings with West Marshall this season, toppling the Trojans in three sets — 25-18, 25-20, 25-13 — to move through the first round of Class 2A Region 5 on Monday night.

East Marshall (13-26) staved off a West Marshall’s inspired start and a late injury scare to senior outside hitter Alivia Neuroth to turn away the Trojans in straight sets. With 2-0 wins over West Marshall in tournaments in Le Grand and at BCLUW earlier this season, the Mustangs had to make sure to take care of business to get through to the regional quarterfinals.

“The first couple of times we handled them pretty well, but it being West Marshall, you knew they were going to come out and they gave us a fight to start with,” said East Marshall head coach Scott Ranck. “I tell you, I was nervous the first couple of sets because West Marshall came to play tonight. It’s good competition for us and our girls responded very, very well.”

With a 2-0 lead and an 11-7 advantage in the third set, Neuroth went up for the kill to expand the advantage, but she fell to the court and stayed there. After getting helped off with what she described as leg cramps, it was all Ranck could do to keep her from rushing back out into the lineup.

“I’m not exactly sure what happened,” Neuroth said, “but Addy went in and did just fine. That was a relief for me on the sideline. She went in and played great, I couldn’t have asked for a better sub.”

Sophomore Addy Denham was called on to play the front row with the Mustangs on the verge of finishing off West Marshall (5-27), and she held her own in a tough spot. She had two attack attempts, neither of which went out of bounds, into the net or to the floor, and she made two digs that prompted the loudest cheers of the night from the hometown crowd.

Neuroth eventually took over when her spot rotated to the back row, and Denham left to a roar from the Mustang faithtful.

“That was amazing,” said East Marshall junior setter Mya Gould. “I was happy for her. It scared me a little bit (that Neuroth went out), but I knew she’d get back in. We just needed someone to come in quick and she did her job out there.”

Neuroth finished with seven kills and junior middle hitter Natalie Condon had a team-high eight to lead the Mustangs to victory. Marisa Cahalan added four kills while Gould and Kiela Wolf added three apiece.

Service aces by junior libero Libby Atcher and Gould helped to spark a 10-1 East Marshall run in the third set that took the lead to 19-8 and spelled the end for West Marshall.

“After seeing them twice, we just all felt confident that maybe we could at least take a game from them,” said West Marshall head coach Buffi Honeck, “especially the way that first game started out. Everyone was uber-confident and things were going our way, but credit to East Marshall — they wouldn’t let anything drop.”

Trojan senior middle hitter Arya Wertz finished with a match-high nine kills, but no other West Marshall attacker had more than four in the season-ending defeat.

“I had Arya on my club volleyball team two years,” said Ranck, “so I maybe had a little advantage. I knew a little bit more what she could do, but she’s really improved. We knew that she had about a third of their attacks, so she was a big focus of ours.”

Wertz had four kills in two blocks in the opening set, but the Trojans couldn’t overcome their mistakes. A six-point surge helped East Marshall take an 18-11 lead it finished off for the Game 1 win.

West Marshall scored the first three points of the night but could only replicate that feat thrice more the rest of the way. Added youth in the lineup, Honeck said, may have been a culprit.

“They’re hitters, so we made some adjustments with bringing in some freshmen that hadn’t played a lot in the rotations up until now, but we needed some blocking,” Honeck said. “We needed a little bit stronger hitters, so that was our attack to be able to stop them, but gosh, they found our holes and exposed that, and we knew they would.”

East Marshall got out to a 14-8 lead in the second set before a 7-1 run by the Trojans tied things up at 15-all. The Mustangs countered with a four-point surge of their own, sparked by kills from Cahalan and Condon, to go up 19-15. Trojan miscues made for another four-point run by East Marshall, taking the score to 24-18 before a West Marshall service error provided the finishing touch.

“We played them twice already and we beat them both times, but going in it scared me a little bit even though we’ve already won just because it’s hard to win against somebody three times,” Gould said. “But we knew their middle is their best player … so we knew what we had to do and we knew what we were going to do to win.”

The third set started out tight, too, as West Marshall’s Evalyn Clark got a kill to make it 9-7, but the 10-1 Mustang run followed.

“Honestly, I think West Marshall came in with a lot of emotions and they were, I’m going to say, more ready than us,” said Neuroth. “They were really excited. They got here, they were louder than us, and I think seeing them like that made us have to be ready for them.

“They weren’t going to let us get just an easy win — they fought hard.”

Freshman Lillian Renze finished with four kills for the Trojans, Clark — also a freshman — had three kills, and junior Ellie Andrews added three kills. Wertz led at the net with three blocks, Andrews had two, and Renze added another.

“I feel like we left everything we had on the floor,” said Honeck. “We could have rolled over and given up but they didn’t, so I’m proud of them for that.”

Condon and Ashtyn Wheater each had one block for East Marshall, which advances to face No. 13 Jesup (21-10) in Wednesday’s regional quarterfinals at Jesup. The J-Hawks, who beat East Marshall 2-0 during the Hudson Tournament earlier this season, had a first-round bye.

“That’s the best part,” Gould said. “We’ve seen them so we know what their weakness is, we know their strengths, so that’ll be fun.”