Hodag spikers fall to Crandon on senior night

The Rhinelander High School volleyball team was hoping to close out its best regular season since 2017 with a home victory on Thursday night. Crandon had other ideas. 

The Cardinals rallied back from down two sets to one to defeat the Hodags 25-16, 25-27, 16-25, 25-21, 15-5 at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.

The non-conference finale featured a mixed agenda for coach Dan Wolter and the Hodags. While the team certainly wanted to win, it was also important to get all eight seniors on the roster some quality playing time in their final home match.

“That was what it was about tonight, getting those seniors in and some playing time and rotating everybody through and letting them enjoy it,” Wolter said. “It’s tough losing in five, but the girls played well. They played well with the adjustments of multiple rotations. I don’t think we had the same rotation for a single one of the sets.”

A trio of runs served the Cardinals well in the opening set. They took the first five points of the match and, after Rhinelander rallied to tie it at 12, scored five in a row again. Rhinelander got back to within 19-16 but the Cardinals reeled off the last six points to take the opener. 

Crandon appeared poised to take a 2-0 lead in the match, up 24-21 in the second but a service error kept the Hodags alive. Kelsi Beran followed with a kill, a Crandon attack out of bounds tied it and Macey Schmoeger gave the Hodags the lead on a kill. Crandon had a spike of its own to tie the match at 25, but then committed another service error followed by an illegal hit to allow Rhinelander to take the second. 

“That one in the second was a lot of fun, coming back from down a handful of points there at the end,” Wolter said. “We just kind of chipped away at it, got it close, tied it up. I think our passing down the end came through really well for us, got us in system and we were able to get some swings and keep them out. They played scrappy. It was a fun set.”

The Hodags led wire-to-wire in the third. Crandon got as close as 20-16 late in the set, but the Hodags scored the last five points — four of which were on Crandon errors or violations — to take a 2-1 lead in the match.

“Set three, I think we started off passing the ball really well,” Wolter said. “When we can get in system and pass, we can get some swings. I thought our defense picked it up a little bit too on tip coverage and just playing scrappy defense.”

Rhinelander led early in the fourth, but Crandon used a 7-1 run to take the lead for good, moving ahead 12-9. Rhinelander inched back within 23-21, but a tip kill by Crandon followed by a Hodag attacking error allowed the Cardinals to square the match. 

Things got away from the Hodags early in the fifth set as the Cardinals used a 9-1 run to go ahead 10-3 in the decisive race to 15 and cruised from there. 

Lily Treder had 12 kills to lead the Hodags while Lexi Robinson added seven. Ava Krouze had 12 assists, Lucy Lindner had four aces and Emma Chiamulera had 20 digs.

After the match, Wolter talked about what his seniors — including Treder, Robinson, Chiamulera, Ava Krouze, Mya Krouze, Maddie Ewan, Alyssa Smiths and Etayne White — have meant to the program. 

“They’re a great group of kids,” he said. “They did a lot of great things for us and for this program early in the year, when we were out in the Dome in large groups for those two weeks helping out with the freshmen kids coming in and rotations and drills and just being leaders. They’re going to be missed, all seniors always are. I appreciate the work they put in for the year and being in the program for the four years and just being a part of it.”

Rhinelander (13-23, 1-11 Great Northern) will face Tomahawk tonight in the opening round of the WIAA tournament. Though the 11th-seeded Hodags come in as the underdog, Wolter is optimistic Rhinelander can hang with Tomahawk after pushing the Hatchets to four sets during match earlier this month. 

“First thing’s first, we’ve got to make our serves, keep the serves in and force them to actually score points on us and play good defense,” Wolter said, noting Rhinelander missed 17 serves in Thursday’s match. “Obviously, serve-receive’s going to be a big part of it as well, just getting the ball in system, similar to what we did at times tonight, just being more consistent with it and finding a way to kind of lock up their middles and see if we can’t do something to keep them out of the game.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].