September 16, 2020 at 12:09 p.m.
Team Preview: RHS volleyball
Rhinelander looks to rebuild with new head coach
Team Preview: RHS volleyball
Following back-to-back one-win seasons, the Hodags have a new head coach in Jim Povolo who is looking to turn around a program that was a Great Northern Conference champion just eight years ago.
There's been plenty of turnover since that point. Povolo is the team's fifth head coach since that season. The Hodags come into the 2020 season on a 25-match losing streak within the GNC, dating back to the team's last win Oct. 7, 2017 at Lakeland. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the Hodags, this year's schedule will be almost exclusively against the GNC.
The team will play only one non-conference match this year during the regular season (at Ashland Sept. 29), which will be either nine or 10 matches this season, down from the 35 to 40 that would be played in a typical year.
"Our goal is to get a least a couple of wins in conference this year," Povolo said. "If we can do that, I think we're headed in the right direction. This is not going to happen overnight. It's going to be a building process, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to do that."
Rhinelander opened the slate at home last night against Mosinee in a match that concluded after deadline and hits the road this evening to take on Northland Pines.
The Hodags do have some building blocks despite graduating their lone all-conference selection from a year ago in outside hitter Cynthia Beavers. Seven players on this year's varsity roster saw at least 20 sets of action in Great Northern Conference play.
Returning varsity contributors include seniors Olivia TerBeest, Emily Jorgensen, Kahlie Arneson and Hannah Worachek, juniors Ariel Pauer and Carly Schmidt and sophomore Ava Lamers.
"As young as we are, we also have the experience," Povolo said. "The difference is speed. JV to varsity, the difference is huge amounts of speed. So they, at least, are accustomed to that speed."
Pauer, a 5-11 outside hitter, will likely be the top source of the Hodags' attack this year. Her 56 kills in GNC play last year are the most of any returning player. Lamers had 33 kills in conference play last year, Arneson had 25 and Jorgensen had 20.
"My outsides are experienced to the point of where if the set is not where it needs to be, they know how to make something out of nothing," Povolo said. "Again, that's what we're kind of looking at, don't hit a haymaker when the ball's already coming down below the tape. We need to know how to handle a ball that's not where it needs to be."
Improvisation may be key for the Hodags this year. That's something Povolo said the team is working on in practice, trying to create scoring chances even when things are not perfect.
"The beginning part of this year, I expect we're going to be out of system quite a bit," he said. "So, what I want to do is to be able to create some points, some scoring opportunities when we're out of system. I don't want it just to be a freeball festival, because no team can survive that way."
"What we're working on now, in addition to our passing of course, is how can we create opportunities when we're out of system," Povolo added. "I think that's going to be a little bit different than last year. It's not going to be as much of a scramble as it was last year."
Povolo said the setting position my be a work in progress this year, after the Hodags graduated their leading setter from last year in Aryssa Zasada. TerBeest is back, and was splitting time with Zasada last year before missing time due to injury. Behind her, junior Karissa Lavender and sophomore Addi DeMeyer are looking to get into the rotation.
It will be the task of Worachek and Schmidt, primarily, to fend off opposing team's attacks and get the ball over to the setter. Worachek had a team-best 124 digs last year as she took over the libero spot while Schmidt chipped in 60 digs as a defensive specialist. Varsity newcomer Reagan Hartman, a junior, will join those two in the back row rotation this year.
"I think our libero's going to be one of the better ones around and our DS is very experienced as well," Povolo noted.
Pauer had a team-high 17 blocks last year. When not attacking on the outside, she could be in the middle along other tall right sides in 6-0 junior Brynn Brzycki and 5-11 sophomore Allie Dornfeld. Junior Natalee Sundby is also in the mix as a right side player. How the conference decides its champion this year will be slightly different as the volleyball teams take a page out of the girls' soccer playbook. Due to the pandemic, the two Saturday morning round-robin tournaments the GNC used to make up roughly half the schedule are gone. Those have been replaced with a single-game round-robin schedule with a positional round at the end of the season. The top four teams following play on Oct. 6 will play each other once more over the final three games of the regular season. The bottom three teams will also play one another, getting in two more contests before the regular season concludes. Second-round play will be hosted by the team that was the visitor during first-round play. Any sort of postseason event has yet to be determined by the WIAA.
Povolo said, especially given the limited amount of contact time this offseason due to the pandemic, the team has set modest goals for the year, but that doesn't mean the team will not try to exceed expectations.
"We would be tickled if we could make it into that top four group. Whether that's a reality or realistic, I don't know," he said. "Why can't it be? We're looking at it as why can't it be? Why can't it be us? We're going to work hard right up until that last point falls and we're going to see what happens."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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