RHS volleyball swept at GNC meet

As coach Dan Wolter described it, the Rhinelander High School volleyball team continued to “take a few lumps” on Saturday as it tries to fight back into the Great Northern Conference win column.

The Hodags dropped two more matches as they were swept by both Medford at Tomahawk during the first GNC tournament of the season at Sheldon Fieldhouse in Antigo.

“It’s a learning phase for these girls,” Wolter said. “We took a few lumps here early in our conference season. We get another opportunity on Tuesday at home against Pines. I told the girls we’ve just got to just circle the wagons a little bit, regroup and get ready for our next game.”

Rhinelander, which had the a bye in Saturday’s first round, took on a Medford team that had just handed Tomahawk its first conference loss of the season in a four-set affair. The Raiders continued that momentum against the Hodags, sweeping the match 25-14, 25-18, 25-14. 

The Raiders used a 9-2 run midway through the first set to take a commanding 16-8 lead. The Hodags were up 11-6 in the second but Medford chipped away to tie it at 15 before scoring seven of the next eight points to seize control. The Raiders led wire-to-wire in the third set, jumping out to a 7-1 lead and never looking back. The Hodags got to within a 12-8 before the Raiders reeled off seven straight points. 

“Against Medford, we just couldn’t find that put away,” Wolter said. “Medford’s a good ball-control team. They did a good job of that and had a couple of big swings on the outside that we had some troubles with.”

It was a similar story against Tomahawk, which rolled to a 25-15, 25-11, 25-18 sweep. A 10-2 Tomahawk spurt broke a 5-all tie in the opening set and the Hatchets raced out to a 16-5 lead in the second. The Hodags held a brief 9-8 lead in the third set, but Tomahawk answered with a 10-2 run to go ahead 18-11. The Hodags staved off three match points, trailing 24-15, but not a fourth as the match came to an end.

“We were a lot more aggressive in getting a lot of swings in our Tomahawk game,” Wolter said. “We had a lot of swings, a lot of attacks, a lot of digs, played some good volleys, but we just couldn’t get a putaway to get momentum. They were just able to kind of keep extending their lead.”

Libbey Buchmann finished with a team-high 10 kills on the day while Lily Treder and Kelsi Beran had eight kills each. Buchmann recorded nine of her kills in the Medford match, as the Hodags had a .113 attacking percentage in the match (19 kills, 11 errors, 71 attacks). The Hodags had 88 attacks against Tomahawk, but finished at the break even mark with 15 kills and 15 errors.

Lucy Lindner had 14 assists and 24 digs on the day, Ava Krouze chipped in six assists. Emma Chiamulera had 28 digs and Buchmann added 12 digs.

“We had stretches today where our serve-receive was really good. I think that helped in our attack total, especially against Tomahawk,” Wolter said. “We passed the ball better, but we’ve got to get kills and find a way to get the ball to the floor. We had three blocks today against Tomahawk. We’re putting up a big block, I think, we’ve just got to find a way to keep that up and keep improving on the little things, finding ways to win point.”

Rhinelander (8-13, 0-5 Great Northern) will host Northland Pines tonight at the Miazga Gym. The Eagles are also winless in GNC play. The two teams played each other in a non-conference invite in Ashland Sept. 9, with the Eagles winning in straight sets 27-26, 25-15.

“I think it’s going to be real competitive,” Wolter said. “We saw them up in Ashland, we went extras with them, but we can definitely go and compete with that team and get a win against them, especially at home. Hopefully we have a good crowd there, can rally the troops there and get that first conference win.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].