RHS volleyball takes set from Mauston in tourney loss

A long season for the Rhinelander High School volleyball team came to an end Tuesday night, but the Hodags went out with a bit of a positive and glimmer of hope for the future.

The Hodags were competitive most of the night, and even stole a set from Mauston in a WIAA Division 2 regional quarterfinal match. Rhinelander, the 12th and final team in the 12-team half sectional eventually fell to fifth-seeded Mauston 25-18, 25-18, 23-25, 25-7.

Rhinelander ended the season with a 3-33 mark, but gave the Golden Eagles (22-9) plenty to think about for much of the match.

“My goal coming into this was to play good competitive volleyball,” Hodag coach Jayme Wyss said. “No matter how it shakes out if at the end of the day you can say we came in we fought hard, and I would say we had three sets of really great volleyball.”

The third set ended up being the highlight for the Hodags, as they temporarily staved off elimination. Rhinelander led most of the set and took advantage of a couple of Mauston errors in the final points to get the win.

Back-and-forth early, Rhinelander used a four-point run to go up 14-9 and force the Eagles to spend a timeout. Mauston rallied to go ahead 17-16, but the Hodags strung together three straight points, including an Ellie Cummings kill, to go up 19-17 and didn’t trail the remainder of the set.

Mauston rallied to tie it at 20, but Rhinelander went ahead 22-20 as a Vayda Ives free ball found the floor on Mauston’s side, followed by an attacking error from the Eagles. Freshman Corynn Waksmonski added a block kill to put the Hodags up 23-21 before the Eagles responded with a pair of kills. A foot fault on the ensuing serve gave Rhinelander set point and the Eagles pushed a cross-court attack wide to give the Hodags the set. 

“Coming away with that win is a really big deal against a No. 5. I feel like anybody that plays us and takes us on should look at our record and just be like, ‘Wow this is going to be a quick easy night,’ and it wasn’t,” Wyss said. “At no point I think does a game, or a set win, or a match, like nothing has ever come easy for us, but these girls have learned how to fight, and there’s a lot to that. Next year, it’s like I hope by then they’ve really learned what it also means to win, what it takes to win.”

Rhinelander couldn’t carry that momentum into the fourth set, however. The Eagles started on a 5-0 run. The Hodags stabilized the gap and got within 9-5, but Mauston went on an eight-point run to go up 17-5 and cruised from there. 

“When you have really high energy coming off of like a win, sometimes it can go either way,” Wyss said. “Sometimes you’re able to carry that momentum and energy in and sometimes you can’t. It was definitely a moment of like, we couldn’t. The last set, let’s just forget about that because that wasn’t a fun way to end it, but that was a heck of a match tonight and I couldn’t be more proud of the girls and the level of play that they brought. They should just be proud of themselves and how far they came.”

The Hodags were in each of the first two sets before fading late. Rhinelander led 12-10 in the first before the Eagles went on an 11-2 run. Rhinelander got back within four at 21-17, but scored only one more point the remainder of the set.

Rhinelander took a 13-10 lead in the second, forcing Mauston into a timeout, but the Eagles responded again, eventually tying the set at 14-14 and 15-15. Rhinelander took its last lead at 16-15 but the Eagles scored 10 of the next 12 points to take a 2-0 lead in the match.

“It felt like even the first two sets really could’ve like if we would have gotten a little more mum at different times, you know, it would have made a big difference,” Wyss said. “It’s exciting because there’s those really exciting moments and three sets of like where we could feel really good about how well we played together and played like a team … We just had a lot of positive energy those first three sets.”

Rhinelander, which was down Kenzie Paulson (knee) in the match, spread the wealth around in the attack. Cummings and Waksmonski had four kills each to lead the team but seven different players recorded two or more kills. Kylie Treder had 11 assists, senior Kayla Skubal led the way with 23 digs and added three service aces. Waksmonski added a pair of block kills.

Overall, defense was a strong point for the Hodags on the evening, as five different players recorded at least eight digs. Tori Stella had 13, Cassidy Lindner had 10, Maddie Paulson had nine and Olivia Ruetz had eight.

“Kayla had a heck of a night. Cassidy had so many digs, so many great digs. I mean it was just a lot of stuff that they played really well and they covered. Our coverage was so much better,” Wyss noted.

While the three wins this season were the fewest for the Hodag program since a winless 2020 season, Wyss noted a young team improved despite adversity this year. The team’s lone returning all-conference player, Libbey Buchmann, played only a handful of matches before undergoing season-ending knee surgery. Junior Ava Rathbun was establishing herself as the team’s top offensive weapon in Buchmann’s stead, but was lost midway through the season due to an ankle injury.

“They should be super proud of the team that we built, because the team that we started with like I said looked vastly different — and not just with players, but the level of play,” Wyss said. “It was a good testimony of like how far we’ve come despite all of the challenges we’ve had.”

Mauston advanced to take on fourth-seeded Reedsburg Thursday night in a regional semifinal. The winner of that match faces a likely matchup with top-seeded Mosinee Saturday night. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].