MEDFORD VOLLEYBALL PREVIEW - ‘WHATEVER IT TAKES’

MEDFORD VOLLEYBALL PREVIEW

Medford’s varsity volleyball team is making the turn this year from being one of the youngest teams in the Great Northern Conference the past two years to one of its most experienced and it plans to make the most of its opportunity.

Adopting a theme of “Whatever it Takes” for the 2024 season, the Raiders are coming off a successful summer season where they nearly won their Monday Night league championship and have continued to work building a team and family atmosphere they hope keeps them on the same page all fall long.

“They really are coming together as one and working hard,” second-year head coach Ashley Jochimsen-McCarron said Monday. “They’re bringing that energy up, their loudness. They’re moving and grooving. They know the gym has to be loud to talk and say what needs to be said.”

The Raiders opened their new season Tuesday by going 5-0 and winning their home invitational, which moved from its traditional late September Saturday date to the first competition day allowed by the WIAA. That was primer number one for opening week. Medford will attend the 40-team Menomonie Sprawl Friday and Saturday, which will be another important gauge to see where it’s at before opening GNC play with home matches against solid teams from Antigo and Lakeland Sept. 5 and 10.

“We’re excited,” Toryn Rau said at Monday’s practice inside steamy Raider Hall.

“We can’t wait,” Shayla Radlinger said. Rau and Radlinger are two of the team’s four seniors who Jochimsen-McCarron said have done an excellent job of taking on leadership roles during the off-season and during the first week of practice. Megan Schaefer and Amelia Pernsteiner are the others.

They all agreed that this year’s team is way ahead of where the 2023 unit was at this point in the season.

“We worked really hard (in the first week),” Pernsteiner said. “Everyone put a lot of effort in.”

Along with the four seniors, the Raiders bring back three juniors and two sophomores from last year’s 15-22 squad that went 66 in GNC play.

The Raiders are making some position tweaks in their front row alignments and the biggest strategic adjustment they’re trying to make is quickening their offensive pace.

“We’re practicing a lot more quick sets,” Schaefer said.

The team was able to put that pace to the test in a five-team scrimmage at D.C. Everest, where Medford faced the host Evergreens, Newman Catholic, Mosinee and Wittenberg-Birnamwood. The seniors said the Raiders weren’t overly sharp early, but the energy and execution picked up toward the end. Jochimsen-McCarron said the Raiders were at their best against GNC rival Mosinee.

“They’re looking sharp, they’re talking, they’re moving and grooving,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “It’s a new year and new season. Their theme is ‘Whatever it Takes,’ and it goes to show because they have been working so hard with this fast offense and immediately applied it on Saturday at our scrimmage. That was fun to see.”

Sophomore Kayla Baumgartner and junior Rylee Hraby return after earning All-GNC second-team spots last fall. Baumgartner is certainly the hitter Medford will try to set up most often and her teammates say she’s ready to build off her respectable first season.

“She’s gotten more confident with herself,” Radlinger said. “We need to keep her swinging with less tipping because we know she can swing.”

“Kayla is much more confident,” Jochimsen- McCarron said. “She definitely is hitting the ball harder. It’s so effortless. She makes it look so easy. But she’s making those hard plays on those hard sets. She will be our go-to. We did at one point tell Kayla your job is to just hard the ball every time. She’s like OK. She’s familiar now with what’s happening. She knows what she’s seeing. She reads the court so well for being a sophomore.”

Hraby returns as the libero. Her teammates and her coach said she’s taken a huge step forward both in terms of execution and as a communicator at that position. Jochimsen-McCarron called it owning the back row.

“You get to call it,” Jochimsen- McCarron said. “You’re the only one that’s back there 100% of the time.”

Rau earned All-GNC honorable mention and is one of those moving, going from the middle to the outside. Radlinger moves from the outside to the middle along with sophomore Taylor Klingbeil, who did well in limited varsity time last fall.

“I think we’re very versatile that we can adjust and do different things,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “Shayla can go outside at any point. Toryn can go in the middle. We’re taller than we’ve been so that’s fun too.”

Schaefer remains in a setter/right side role. Pernsteiner remains in the front row, junior Finley Arndt is back in the other setting spot and junior Aliyah Pilgrim returns as a defensive specialist and was one of Medford’s top serving threats last season.

“Aliyah is passing a great ball and talking back there,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “Finley and Megan have adjusted to those fast sets, just putting them up and going. We’ve talked to them about challenging themselves to making those harder sets and they’re executing them.”

Juniors Laney Hraby and Sophia Steinman make the move up to the varsity. Hraby should see some back-row time, while Steinman, who actually stepped in to set in summer league, is challenging for time in the front row.

Juniors Kailyn Haenel, Ruthie Steinman and Hannah Egle were up with the varsity in Tuesday’s invite and Haenel wound up playing a key role in the title run after Klingbeil went down with an injury.

The team’s number-one goal is to rise up and win the conference championship and it knows it has to stick together through the ups and downs of the season to do that. The seniors mentioned several times how connected and together things feel early on.

“We did a team camp this summer (at UW-Eau Claire) and that helped us understand how to communicate to each other, what to say and provide,” Radlinger said.

“The team camp was more than just volleyball. It was more about team building,” Rau said.

“We have a good setter/ hitter communication,” Pernsteiner said. “It really works.”

Mosinee (12-0), Tomahawk (9-3) and Lakeland (8-4) finished ahead of Medford in the final 2023 GNC standings. The Raiders were ousted at home in the first round of the WIAA Division regionals by Antigo, a team they split with during the season.

This is the first year of five-division WIAA tournament play. Medford remains in Division 2, but will see teams from the northwestern part of the state now instead of going east at least through the sectional semifinal round if they get that far.

“They are setting high goals,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “I think in our conference it’s attainable, the championship. We don’t have a lot of home games this year. We’ll have to overcome that while playing away, but some of those away games will be really big games, like playing at Mosinee. Just to keep that high energy, that’s all we need.”

“Making it far in the playoffs is a goal,” Rau said. “We’re in a different sectional this year. That’s exciting. We’re not playing the same teams over and over.”

“I think we can do it,” Pernsteiner said. “We definitely have a good chance.”