Raiders win five-set thriller at Pines, drop opener to Mosinee

MEDFORD VOLLEYBALL

S Recent history has shown that at least once per season, the Medford Raiders and Northland Pines Eagles are going to lock horns in an outstanding volleyball match.

That box can already be checked for 2021.

In Eagle River Tuesday, the Raiders appeared to be on their way to a rare easy win over the Eagles after winning the first two sets, but Pines dug in its heels and took the next two to send the match to a decisive fifth game where the Raiders scored the last four points to get out of town with a 15-13 win.

The 3-2 match win evened Medford’s early-season GNC record at 1-1 and its overall record at 6-6, while the Eagles dropped their league opener and fell to 5-6 overall.

“We have had some good matches with them,” Medford head coach Cheryl Schreiner said. “That was a nice one to come out on top. It was a tough battle.”

The Raiders got into an early groove, taking the first set 25-16 and the second 25-14 in one of their best stretches of the young season.

“Our serving was really tough,” Schreiner said. “We kept them out of system with some tough serving. Megan Fredrikson was just on fire. She was swinging strong and making good contact.”

Fredrikson was Medford’s kill leader for the night with 13 and she had just three errors in 31 attacks. While Medford had just four aces –– two apiece from Gabby Brunner and Fredrikson –– the Raiders also had just six errors in 66 serves.

Schreiner said the key player in the turnaround for Pines was junior Paris Croker, whose tough serving was a momentum changer. “We got into some serve receive trouble with one of their servers,” she said. “She really served well and got us into a hole with our receive. Then when we did get the ball back, we’d miss a serve and you can’t do that.”

Serve receive has been an area of emphasis this season with the Raiders. While Tuesday showed it’s still not perfected, Schreiner said it is improving.

“It has gotten better,” she said. “It shows in the stats because good passing led to our hitters having a positive hitting percentage. Against Mosinee, we had a negative hitting percentage.”

Pines took a tight third game 25-22. With momentum, the Eagles controlled game four 25-18. The fifth game was another tight one. Pines had its chance to nail it down, leading 13-11, but the Raiders got a sideout and then served out the last three points to win it.

“I believe we’re going to see more matches like this,” Schreiner said. “We have more tough ones coming. We want to be at our best and peaking at the end of the season. We have to keep battling through matches like this. We have to push through both physically and mentally to win these close matches and keep battling. The fifth set was close. I don’t think there was more than a two-point differential the whole set.”

After Fredrikson, the kill numbers were balanced. Rynn Ruesch had seven, Laurissa Klapatauskas added six and Martha Miller and Katie Brehm added four each. Ruesch had two solo block kills and two block assists. Katie Lybert set up 14 assists, Allie Paulson had 10 assists and Emma Brost had eight.

Brunner led the team with 16 digs, Lybert had 15, Klapatauskas had 12, Paulson had 11 and Olivia Krug had 10.

Since 2016, Medford and Northland Pines have played one five-set match each year except 2018 where one match went to four games. Medford has had the upper hand, winning nine of 11 GNC matches between the teams.

The Raiders will see more good competition Saturday at the 12-team Merrill Invitational, which starts at 9 a.m. The tournament features strong small-school programs like Athens, Marathon, Tomahawk and Stanley-Boyd as well as large schools like Merrill, Chippewa Falls and Bay Port.

The Raiders host Menomonie Tuesday in non-conference play before hosting the first GNC meet of the season Sept. 18 at Medford Area Middle School. They’ll face Tomahawk, Lakeland and Antigo that day.

Mosinee 3, Medford 0

In the Great Northern Conference opener Thursday, Mosinee extended its conference winning streak to 45 matches with a 3-0 sweep over the Raiders, but Medford made things interesting at times, especially in the first two sets.

“They were very good, but we hung,” Schreiner said. “We hung with them until points 15, 16, then it got away from us. The girls talked about it after the match about how we have to keep that energy up the whole time and not let it drop and dig those holes.”

Medford tied the first set at 10-10 on a Lybert ace and then got the next point to take the lead. A Ruesch block kill made it 13-12 in favor of Mosinee and her push tip got Medford within 15-13, but Mosinee went on a five-point run behind Claire Selenske’s serving which opened up a 2013 lead. The Indians then got one block kill apiece from their imposing middles Abbi Martin and Jenna Placek to close out a 25-19 win.

Medford jumped ahead 4-0 in game two, fell behind 8-4 and then battled back to a 13-13 tie highlighted by a Brunner ace and kills from Brehm and Miller. Ruesch’s kill tied the set again at 16-16, but Mosinee got a kill from Dannica Shupe for a sideout and then added seven more points behind the serving of Hailey Shnowske and dominance at the net from Martin. The Indians won the set 25-17.

“I thought the energy was way better than it was (Aug. 28 at the Menomonie Sprawl),” Schreiner said. “The girls all want it and they know they’re very close. We finished the first set and they were, ‘we’re right there.’” Volleyball

Medford had early leads of 2-0 and 5-3 and tied it 8-8 in the third set, but a couple of Placek kills and aces from Jessica Mauer sparked a 14-5 run that sealed the deal in another 25-17 set.

Miller had eight kills to lead Medford, while Ruesch added four. Paulson had seven assists and Lybert added six. Krug led Medford with 13 digs with Klapatauskas adding 11. While Ruesch got credit for Medford’s only solo block, she had three assists, Paulson added two and Fredrikson had one.

“We’ve really been working hard with our blockers with their footwork and their hand position,” Schreiner said. “A lot of them like to block with their hands straight up and down versus thumbs to the ceiling and pinkies to the floor. So we’ve been really focusing on fine-tuning their blocking. If we can fine tune that blocking, we have the size and we can jump. If we fine-tune that blocking we should be able to shut down a few teams. It’s there.”

Selenske’s nine kills led four Indians who had at least seven in the match.

DOUG ETTEN/VILAS COUNTY NEWS REVIEW

Continued from page 2

Medford’s Emma Brost sets up a teammate while Madi Meisenburg of Northland Pines watches during Tuesday’s five-set match in Eagle River.