September 3, 2021 at 12:33 p.m.
Lakeland sweeps Rhinelander in GNC volleyball opener
Lakeland sweeps Rhinelander in GNC volleyball opener
Lakeland raced to a 25-7 win in the first set and never looked back, completing the sweep with wins of 25-19 and 26-16 over the final two sets. Rhinelander had only one lead the entire match, and that was after scoring the opening point of the third set.
"Every game we started down five or six. When you give it up that early and put yourself in a hole, it's hard to get yourself out of it," Hodag coach Dan Wolter said.
Lakeland raced out to a 14-2 lead in the first set, with 11 of their points coming as the result of Rhinelander errors. The Hodags briefly cut the lead to 10 on an Ava Lamers block kill, but Lakeland closed out the set on an 11-3 run.
"Our passing, right off the bat, was not great in our first game," Wolter said. "The second game was a little bit better. We hung with them a lot better in the second game because of our passing."
The Hodags fell behind 5-0 in the second set, but rallied to tie on three separate occasions. A kill by freshman Kelsi Beran got Rhinelander back to 13-all in the set, but Beran missed on her next attack. Callie Ullius followed with an ace and Lakeland went on a 7-1 run that included three kills by sophomore Meg Pfannerstill to pull ahead 20-14. Rhinelander got it back to four at 23-19 as Brynn Brzycki and Allie Dornfeld combined for a block kill, but Lamers missed the next serve and Pfannerstill put one down from the back row to give Lakeland a 2-0 lead in the match.
Pfannerstill led all players with 14 kills.
"Any time she had a good ball to swing at, she was swinging hard," Wolter said. "She's a good player out there. I think we did a good job of making her either slow that swing down or take an off-speed shot instead of just bearing in on us."
A tip kill by Rivers Eagleson gave Rhinelander the first point of the third set, but Lakeland scored the next four and used a 7-0 run midway through the set to take a 17-8 lead. The T-Birds cruised the rest of the way.
Despite the struggles, Rhinelander had one of its better front row nights of the season, credited with six blocks according to the team's statistics.
"We had a huge block up there tonight," Wolter said. "I think Allie Dornfeld had probably three or four blocks in that second game alone. That's a good sight to see, that we're putting up some good hands and getting a lot of touches on stuff."
Lamers led Rhinelander with five kills in the match, Brzycki had three and Eagleson chipped in two. Maddi Roeser led the team with four assists while Reagan Hartman had eight digs and was 7 of 7 serving with an ace.
The loss extended Rhinelander GNC losing streak to 35 matches, dating back to late 2017.
The road does not get any easier for the Hodags (3-8, 0-1 Great Northern) tonight as they travel to Mosinee, which began its GNC title defense Thursday with a three-set victory over Medford.
"Hopefully we learn to have a short memory," Wolter said. "We turn around and play Mosinee on Tuesday. That's never a fun one because they are a tough team to play against, and it's in Mosinee. Going into a big environment, we've got to learn from our mistakes and start battling a little bit more in points."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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