November 7, 2022 at 8:48 a.m.
Volleyball team skips awards, honors seniors at banquet
Volleyball team skips awards, honors seniors at banquet
Second-year head coach Dan Wolter said he's hoping the effort the seniors showed this year helps spark a turnaround for a program that has struggled mightily over the last five years.
The Hodags won nine matches this season, three more than the previous four seasons combined.
"You really made it a great team atmosphere this year" Wolter said, addressing seniors Morgan Boutelle, Addi DeMeyer, Allie Dornfeld, Ava Lamers and Maddi Roeser. "You really held us together and held a lot of us accountable - even myself - when we got into practices and things like that. I greatly appreciate it.
"I hope you guys had a great last year and had some fun. You did a lot of good things this year with your work ethic and everything that you did. It was great to see us finally get some wins for you guys and thank you."
Wolter went low-key on awards last year too, only presenting awards to the leaders in four statistical categories. This time the team did not even do that. The only awards presented, aside from varsity letters, were all-conference certificates for Lamers and Emma Chiamulera, who each received honorable mention.
Had statistical awards been presented this year, Lamers would have earned top marks for kills (180) and total blocks (56), Roeser would have been named the assist leader (148) and Chiamulera would have been tops in digs (298).
"The way the stats lined up, everything was really tight. It was hard to make decision on how that went down, so we just stuck with senior awards and the all-conference ones," Wolter explained afterward. "We thought it would be a good motivator as well for some of those girls to push a little harder to get an all-conference award instead of just a nomination from a coach or something like that."
Turning his attention back to the seniors, Wolter noted their commitment dating all the way back to the offseason helped to provide some improved results for the team this year.
"Last year was pretty rough and you guys started turning it around. It started backing just when the majority of you started coming to weight room, coming to open gyms, playing league, putting in that time. You worked really hard to build," he said.
Rhinelander started the season by winning its home invite and then picked up four more wins in the Friendship Tournament in Wisconsin Dells. The Hodags won two more matches in an invite in Phillips in mid-September.
What has continued to evade the Hodags was a Great Northern Conference match victory - something the team hasn't experienced since 2017. Rhinelander showed signs its closing the gap, however, winning a set in two of its final three conference matches of the season. Prior to that, the last time the Hodags had won a set in conference play came all the way back in 2019.
"We played well. I don't think our record exactly reflected the way we finished," Wolter said. "That's a lot of compliments to you and how hard you worked. I appreciated it a lot as a coach knowing you were there, worked hard every day and the amount of time and effort you put in all the way through."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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