Hodag volleyball splits matches in GNC meet

The Rhinelander High School volleyball team overcame a sluggish start to its day Saturday to pick up its first Great Northern Conference win of the season during the first leg of the GNC tournament in Minocqua.

After getting swept in three sets by Medford, the Hodags bounced back to defeat Northland Pines in four sets to end the day. The win was just Rhinelander’s second in GNC play since the start of the 2018 season. The Hodags split their matches against Northland Pines last season. 

Hodag coach Jayme Wyss said her squad showed some resiliency on Saturday as it was able to bounce back and get into the win column.

“I feel a lot of just had moments of frustration and our team is all about overcoming adversity,” she said. “You get frustrated, you’re the underdog, you get called for double (hit)s, how do we respond to that? I think that says a lot if we’re able to rally back around and have a really good attitude later. I think that speaks volumes to the type of players and type of people we want to be at the end of the day.”

The Hodags drew the bye in the first round of the three-round tournament and faced Medford in the second round. The Raiders, who swept Tomahawk in round 1, established control right away, taking the first two sets by matching 25-14 scores. 

“The first two sets were really frustrating … We just couldn’t do anything. We had so many errors. We couldn’t dig on them. It wasn’t that (Medford) was outstanding. It’s just that we played that bad,” Wyss said. 

The Hodags fought back in the third and led 24-23, but the Raiders claimed the final three points to complete the sweep, 26-24. 

“The third set we finally come out to play and we sparred so well with them,” Wyss noted. “We hit game point first and then lost it 24-26. It was on our own error, poor communication, taking too long to react to things on that last point.”

Things were different in the second match against Northland Pines, which was fresh off a five-set loss to Tomahawk. The Hodags took control early, winning the first set 25-19. After dropping the second 25-21, Rhinelander responded and took the final two sets, 25-19, 25-21.

Wyss said despite falling to Northland Pines in a non-conference matchup in the Ashland Invite two weeks prior, her team knew it could compete with the Eagles and came out as the aggressors in the second match. 

“All of my girls were firing,” she said. “We had a lot of errors, but we had more good stuff than bad stuff. A lot of our errors happened in that second set that we lost. We just came out really strong the first set. It was like, ‘OK, we’re doing this. We’re taking charge.’ It definitely felt like we controlled the game.”

Junior Libbey Buchmann finished with 24 kills on the day, including 17 on 36 attacks against the Eagles. Kelsi Beran had 13 kills against the Eagles, and 18 overall on the day, while Macey Schmoeger added 10 kills and eight blocks. 

“It felt like they couldn’t respond well to what we were doing. Libbey was just killing it. Kelsi had a positive (attacking) percentage. She would just hammer. Macey, Kelsi and Libbey were just solid,” Wyss noted. 

    Rhinelander’s Macey Schmoeger (9) and Lucy Lindner (15) put up a double block against Northland Pines’s Maggie Reppert during the GNC tournament in Minocqua Saturday, Sept. 21. Schmoeger recorded a team-high eight blocks on the day as the Hodags split their matches. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

In particular, Wyss said she was pleased by Schmoeger’s day after the senior overcame an injury scare earlier in the week at practice. 

“I feel her confidence has come back this season,” she said. “I love having her on the court. She’s big, she moves and she has, for the most part, just smart plays with the ball and good contact. She knows when to tip and knows when she can swing. I think she’s just become more consistent and I love having her out there.”

Lucy Lindner had 40 assists on the day, including 35 in the Pines match. The Hodags had 12 service aces in the Pines match. Cassidy Lindner led the way with four aces on the day. Final defensive numbers were not available as of press time, but Wyss noted that Buchmann, Tori Stella, Cassidy Lindner and Kayla Skubal were among the leaders in the back row.

“Kayla had a great game. Cassidy has a great game and then Tori. That’s a really solid back row. Libbey plays all the way around,” she said. “We have really good stuff happening in the back, and that feels good. There’s just more depth in the back row.”

The Hodags (8-17, 1-4 Great Northern) will round out the first half of conference play at home against GNC-leading Mosinee tonight at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. Though the Indians come into tonight’s match undefeated in the GNC, Antigo pushed Mosinee to a five-set match at Saturday’s conference tournament. 

“We’ll see what kind of team of ours shows up against Mosinee,” Wyss said. “Mosinee reminds me a lot of Wautoma. They dig everything and are just clean. They have a good outside hitter that they run a lot, but she’s not crazy. They’re just a team that’s going to pick everything up and make good plays. We’ll see what we can do.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].