September 17, 2018 at 12:48 p.m.
Hodag volleyball drops two at home in GNC tourney
Hodag volleyball drops two at home in GNC tourney
The Hodags lost their first match of the day in four sets to Lakeland and followed that with a three-set loss to Northland Pines.
"There were some moments where they were playing good and getting some good hits, but it just seemed like today everyone was down and not really there," Rhinelander coach Brianna Scheuermann said. "I'm not sure if it's playing and then sitting for a couple hours. The 20 minutes (between rounds), that's definitely a killer, because you lose that momentum, but it seemed like everyone was really down."
After splitting the first two sets with Lakeland, 9-25 and 25-21, the Hodags faded to a pair of 25-14 losses in the third and fourth sets against the T-Birds.
Rhinelander led 24-19 in the second set, but missed an opportunity to take set point due to a service error. Lakeland rallied for a couple of points before committing a service error of its own to end the set. That momentum never carried over for the Hodags, however. They found themselves behind 9-2 in the third set and 8-2 in the fourth and were never able to crawl back. Rhinelander closed to within four at 10-6 in both sets but never got any closer.
"The second set, which they won, they were awake and moving," Scheuermann said. "They were actually getting good hits and service aces. It just seemed like, from there, they went back down again. That's something we've got to work on."
Rhinelander had trouble slowing down Northland Pines' Jacqueline Smith, who led the GNC in kills a season ago, in its second match of the day.
Smith put away four of the first nine points for the Eagles in the first set as Pines raced out to a 16-4 lead and took the set 25-8. Rhinelander got within 14-12 in the second set, but back-to-back kills by Smith sparked a closing 11-2 salvo for Pines, which took it 25-14. With the Hodags down 10-5 in the third, Smith got a kill and then went on the serve for seven straight points as Pines pushed its lead to double digits and eventually won 25-10.
Aside from Smith, Pines got effective net play from Elizabeth Gauthier, Lauren Grosskopf and Emily McGee.
"They utilized more players and we don't have that many that can put the ball down," Scheuermann said. "I think today, with not getting as many touches on the ball, it was really hard on our back row and they couldn't get passes up."
Hannah Worachek led Rhinelander with seven kills on the day, Brooke Mork had six kills and Kahlie Arneson chipped in five kills. Mork added 19 digs, Arneson had a pair of blocks and Aryssa Zasada had 30 set attempts for Rhinelander.
The Hodags were without senior libero Mikayla Evenstad. Freshman Carly Schmidt took her place in the lineup, recorded nine digs and was 14 of 14 serving with three aces.
"She did pretty good for her first time being a varsity libero," Scheuermann noted.
Rhinelander (1-25, 0-5 Great Northern) will play GNC-leading Mosinee Friday at the Miazga Gym. The varsity match is slated to start at approximately 5:30 p.m., with the teams beginning warmups as soon as the junior varsity match, which starts at 4 p.m., concludes.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
WEATHER SPONSORED BY
E-Editions
Latest News
E-Editions
Events
August
To Submit an Event Sign in first
Today's Events
No calendar events have been scheduled for today.
Comments:
You must login to comment.