September 28, 2022 at 12:15 p.m.
Hodag volleyball shows flashes, but falls to Medford
Hodag volleyball shows flashes, but falls to Medford
Rhinelander had the lead in two of the three sets, and was within a point late in the third, but fell short in a 25-19, 25-15, 25-20 loss to the Raiders at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.
It was a much better effort for the Hodags than their first meeting against Medford, which the Raiders took 25-12, 25-10, 25-8 in Eagle River back on Sept. 17, but it was not enough to give the Hodags their first set win in 27 conference matches.
"I think a lot of it was playing three good sets over the weekend, a little confidence there, getting wins over at Phillips," Hodag coach Dan Wolter said. "For the most part, we limited it to just one run of four or five and it was just at a bad time of the game for us, late into a set. That's always tough to climb back in when you're running out of points to trade off."
The Hodags had a 19-18 lead in a back-and-forth first set against the Raiders before Delaney Hraby tied it on a tip kill for Medford. From there DeLana Radlinger rattled off four straight aces, including three straight at freshman Tori Stella, as Medford extended the lead. Another tip kill by Hraby and a net violation on Rhinelander's Ava Krouze gave Medford a 25-19 win in the opener.
"The way we came out in Set 1 was a lot of energy, kind of going back and forth. Getting up and fighting with them off the get-go was great to see with a lot of fire and energy," Wolter said. "They got on little service runs there later in the set and just extended their lead a little bit. When we were able to get a ball to the floor, we weren't able to get runs back on them. They did a good job of buckling down and making a good pass when they needed to have one."
Rhinelander was up 11-10 in the second when the Raiders made a decisive run. Emma Chiamulera had a service error to give the serve back over to Medford and from there, the Raiders rattled off 10 of the next 12 points to take a 21-13 lead.
Down 17-10 in the third set, the Hodags got back to within 18-17 on a spike kill by Kelsi Beran that forced a Medford timeout. Medford's Allie Paulson answered with a kill, followed by a pair of Rhinelander errors that extended the lead to 21-17.
Ava Lamers had 11 kills in the match while Beran added five kills. The Hodags had 88 attacks, their most in any conference match this season, and had a plus-.080 attacking percentage.
"We ran a lot more offense than we have in the past. That's a good sign," Wolter said.
Rhinelander also had some better defensive numbers. Chiamulera had 17 digs, while Lamers and Lexi Robinson chipped in eight digs each. The Hodags also had three team block kills on the night.
"We had a lot of block returns, especially in that first set. We really forced them into tougher situations, keeping them out of system," Wolter said.
Morgan Boutelle had nine assists for Rhinelander while Krouze chipped in six assists and a pair of service aces.
Rhinelander (9-16, 0-7 Great Northern) traveled to Wausau Newman Thursday for a non-conference match that concluded after press time for today's edition. The Hodags return to action this coming Tuesday at conference-leading Tomahawk.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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