Hodag volleyball drops all three matches at GNC

The Saturday blues continued for the Rhinelander High School volleyball team. 

The Hodags, who struggled last weekend in a home invite, were unable to win a set Saturday during the second Great Northern Conference meet in Tomahawk. Rhinelander was swept by Lakeland, Mosinee and Northland Pines, with the Eagles avenging Rhinelander’s only conference win of the season.

“We had some mental errors that happened, some communication stuff throughout the day that really hurt us,” Hodag coach Dan Wolter said. “Serving was a big thing again today. We just missed too many serves. I thought we passed the ball well at times, especially against Lakeland that second set, we just couldn’t play a complete game today.”

Rhinelander started from the gates slowly in the opening match against Lakeland, dropping the opening set 25-7. The Hodags were much more competitive in the second set, falling 25-21 and then dropped the third 25-16.

“We got out to a slow start set 1 against Lakeland and set 2 we played really well,” Wolter noted. “We stuck with them right there, 21-25 loss, but we played well, passed the ball well, got some big kills and played some really good defense that second set. Then we just couldn’t keep the troops rallied for set 3.”

A match against GNC-leading Mosinee followed and, again, the Hodags’ slowest set was their first in a 25-13, 25-18, 25-19 defeat. 

“We went to a 6-2 to try to get a little bigger block on them because they do have some good outsides and some good hitters,” Wolter said. “We went to a 6-2 to get a little more height in that front row. That second and third set we hung tough with them until about halfway through the set and just the kind of got on a couple of big runs and we just couldn’t dig out from it. But I thought we had a lot of touches on the block and it helped us stay in points.”

Rhinelander ended the day against Northland Pines, who it defeated last month to snap a 62-match conference losing streak. Things did not got as well this time around against the Eagles as the close sets fell Pines’ way in a 25-18, 25-22, 25-17 loss.

“We stuck with a 6-2 to just try to keep a big block on them,” Wolter said. “They don’t have a ton of good swings, but we just didn’t pick up enough balls off the touch and a lot of stuff that just kind of rolled their way and didn’t play our best volleyball.”

Kelsi Beran led the Hodags with 17 kills on the day — including seven kills apiece in the Lakeland and Mosinee matches. Libbey Buchmann added 12 kills and three blocks while Lily Treder had nine kills.

Lucy Lindner had 27 assists on the day while Ava Krouze had 18 assists as the Hodags went with a two-setter rotation for much of the day. Emma Chiamulera and Tori Stella finished with 19 digs each.

Lindner had three service aces for Rhinelander, but serving continued to be an issue for the Hodags. Rhinelander had 20 service errors on the day compared to only nine aces and served at an 87.2-percent clip on the day.

The Hodags (13-21, 1-10 Great Northern) were set to learn their postseason fate Sunday evening in a WIAA seeding meeting, which concluded after deadline. Rhinelander appeared set to land on the bottom half of the 14-team draw, which would mean a road match to open the WIAA tournament next Tuesday.

Rhinelander closes out GNC play at Antigo on Tuesday and will finish off the regular season at home against Crandon on Thursday.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].