The streak is over

A victory in Great Northern Conference competition has been a long time coming for the Rhinelander High School volleyball team.

The Hodags’ streak of futility stretched to 62 matches and 205 sets in conference play. It lasted 2,173 days and spanned four head coaches.

It finally came to an end Tuesday night as the Hodags out-dueled Northland Pines 25-22, 25-23, 25-23 at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.

Lucy Lindner aced the Eagles for match point, and the celebration erupted from the Hodag bench.

“Honestly, it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” senior libero Emma Chiamulera said. “It was like a light just came on us and it was like, ‘Wow, we actually did this.’ We put in the work. We fought through it. We got through it and we won.”

Ironically, Northland Pines was the scene of the Hodags’ last conference win, though it was not against the Eagles. Rhinelander swept Lakeland in the final round of the conference tournament in Eagle River on Oct. 7, 2017 in coach Kathy Wawrzynowicz’s final year at the helm.

The Hodags hit rock bottom after that, winning a total of three matches in the subsequent three seasons under two different head coaches.

Rhinelander has made incremental gains in coach Dan Wolter’s three seasons at the helm. Finally on Tuesday they cleared the hurdle of winning a conference match.

“Pure excitement, pure joy. All those girls have been working very hard for this,” said Wolter, whose team matched its win total from 2022 with Tuesday’s victory. “Credit goes to them. They’ve worked hard. They stayed in the game. All the girls were involved tonight and it was a team win.

“It’s definitely been the goal for the last few years, to get rid of this streak. I couldn’t be more proud of the girls tonight. They played a heck of a game, never got down on themselves once. Even after giving up a little run, they dug down, made a good play and got on their own run. It was great to see after a couple of disappointing games on Saturday to come back strong to play three really complete sets.”

    Rhinelander’s Kelsi Beran looks to tip a ball past Northland Pines’ Bella Nowak while teammate Callie Hoerchler looks on during the first set of a GNC volleyball match at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium Tuesday, Sept. 19. Beran led the Hodags with nine kills in the three-set victory. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

The Hodags got the job done Tuesday night by putting away close sets — something they had struggled to do during the latter stages of the losing streak as sets and matches became more competitive. Northland Pines held a slight lead late in each set, but the Hodags closed on runs of 5-0, 4-1 and 4-1 to complete the sweep.

“Tonight they did a great job of finding that way to win,” Wolter said. “They fought back in points and stayed right there with them, never really let the game get out of hand and they stayed tough.”

The Hodags led much of the first set but found themselves down 22-20 after the Eagles ran off a string of kills. Rhinelander caught a break as Tori Stella’s lunging attempt to keep the ball alive got over the net and landed just inside the boundary on the Eagles’ half of the court. From there, an Eagle attacking error tied the set at 22, kills by Lily Treder and Lexi Robison gave the Hodags a look at set point and Rhinelander won on another attacking error by Pines. 

“They kind of chipped back in, in the middle of that set and we were able to recover from it and go on a big run of our own and just kind of never looked back after that,” Wolter said. “We made a couple of big digs in the back row to keep the ball alive and just kept fighting in volleys.”

The Eagles used a block kill by Kirkland Williams to cap off an 8-2 run and take a 22-21 lead in the second set. Kelsi Beran tied in on a tip kill, but a service error by Chiamulera put the Eagles back ahead. The Hodags answered with another kill by Beran and a tip kill by Treder before another Pines attacking error give Rhinelander a two-set lead.

“Those are big momentum swings when you get a couple of big kills like that late in the game. We were able to ride that momentum to the end there,” Wolter said.

The lead changed four times down the stretch in the third set and Pines moved ahead 22-21 when an attack by Treder barely missed the far sideline. Pines eventually led 23-22 and thought it had a block kill to get to set point, but the Hodags were able to keep the ball alive and get it to Beran for a tip that tied the set. From there, another missed attack by the Eagles set up match point and Lindner found a hole in the Eagles alignment.

“Just to hear that crowd erupt when that happened was amazing,” said Treder, who had eight kills and two blocks in the match. “It’s amazing. We’ve put so much work in already this year. We knew it would come at some point this season. I’m so happy.”

Beran led the Hodags with nine kills. Both her and Treder were able to keep the Eagle defense guessing with a combination of tips and big swings. 

“They were finding good, open spots, and then when they started kind of crashing in on the tips, letting one rip that way and getting a kill that way,” Wolter said. “That’s important. When one thing’s not working, go to the next and she did a good job mixing that up tonight.”

Lindner had 31 assists for Rhinelander while Chiamulera had 27 digs. Libbey Buchmann added five kills, 20 digs and three service aces. Hoerchler chipped in six kills as the Hodags finished with a plus-.112 attacking percentage on 119 total attacks. 

“The stat line shows, with that many swings, we’re getting the ball to the setter to do her job. I’d like to keep that rolling forward. When we can pass, we can get good swings,” Wolter said.

Now that the streak is over, the Hodags (9-11, 1-5 Great Northern) want to make sure that conference wins are no longer such a rare occurrence. 

Rhinelander will travel to Phillips for a non-conference invite on Saturday before getting back into GNC play next Tuesday at Medford.

“That was kind of the halfway point of the conference season,” Wolter said. “We’ve got everybody one more time in conference and will definitely ride this momentum into Saturday, hopefully pick up more wins there and keep this momentum rolling.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].