TOURNEY TIME HAS ARRIVED
WIAA DIV. 2 VOLLEYBALL
Medford starts regional play with a 3-1 win
After a full volleyball regular season, it’s hard to call the Medford Raiders inexperienced anymore.
But at the start of Tuesday’s WIAA Division 2 regional quarterfinal with Clintonville, their tournament inexperience showed.
Fortunately, the Raiders shook off their bad first set and took care of the ninth-seeded Truckers 3-1 to extend their season for at least two more days. It won’t be easy to keep it going past today, Thursday, as the eighth-seeded Raiders travel to face top-seeded Tomahawk in a regional semifinal.
But, they’re happy to have the chance.
“I think we were all really nervous,” senior Allie Paulson said of the shaky start. “I mean we were all excited to play, but I could tell all our nerves were kicking in. We weren’t playing quite as a team or to our full potential.”
Senior Delaney Hraby said it simply came down to energy.
“I think that we didn’t have much energy at all because we came from eating, sitting down,” she said. “Then we came to play and there was no energy and no one wanted to talk or communicate.”
But, after the Raiders got something rolling at the end of game one, despite a 25-16 loss, Hraby said things changed.
“I felt like we got a lot of energy going into (game two) because we knew we wanted to win,” she said. “When our energy goes up we start playing a lot better.”
“In that first set, we hit a lot of balls out of bounds, we hit a lot of balls into the net,” Medford head coach Cheryl Schreiner said. “Just getting rid of those first-set nerves was huge. After that, the energy was up. That’s high school sports. I was really proud of how the bench pumped everybody up because the girls on the court feed off that energy from the bench. Some of those girls don’t even have voices right now because they were cheering so loud.”
The unforced errors had a lot to do with the Truckers building a 20-8 lead in the first set. But after a timeout, Medford got a sideout and, with Megan Schaefer serving, they got on a little roll to get within 20-12. They never got any closer than eight, but that small run gave the Raiders something to build on going into game two.
“Martha Miller said it in the timeout that we’re playing not to lose. Let’s play to win,” Schreiner said. “They came back on fire. Even though we lost that one we had some good momentum points going into the second set.”
The Raiders got some big swings from Hraby, Paulson, Rau and Miller to take an early 5-2 lead in game two and that’s where the energy took over.
“I feel like after we get big kills our energy is through the roof and everyone feeds off of it,” Hraby said. “When one of my teammates gets a kill I get so hyped and I want to be just like that. I want to go up there and swing hard.”
While the swings got better and harder, the back row also started communicating better and began digging up balls it didn’t get to in the first game. The Raiders extended their leads to 1912 on a kill from the right side by Paulson and 23-15 on a push by Paulson that found a hole. The Truckers made a run, getting within 23-22 and 24-23 but Miller’s attack from the back row ended the set at 25-23.
The third set was pivotal. Medford led 10-7, but a 5-0 run that included two kills from Clintonville’s Lauren Zwirschitz put Clintonville in front 1210. Clintonville widened the lead to 18-13, but Paulson got the sideline with a kill and, with DeLana Radlinger serving, the Raiders made a move. Paulson got another kill, Hraby found the back line for another and Miller’s attack couldn’t be returned after a deflection, making it 18-17. The Truckers went back up 21-17, but the Raiders didn’t quit and eventually tied it at 24-24. Rau’s roll to the back corner won a tying point again at 25-25, Miller’s roll put Medford in front and a hitting error by Clintonville gave Medford a big 27-25 win.
“In the timeout (down 15-11), we said we need to stay on the attack, Schreiner said. “That’s one of the things we’ve been saying coming out of our timeouts now is attack, because we tend to get timid and get careful versus just going out and hitting the ball. We took a set on the cursed side of the court and then we got to go back over to the other side (where the first two sets were won).”
The fourth set was all Raiders. Miller’s kill made it 5-4 and put them up for good. Paulson’s ace made it 9-5, Rau’s attack to back line got a late touch for a point at 12-6, then two kills from Paulson sandwiched around one from Rau opened up an 18-8 lead. The Truckers scored three points, Medford called a timeout and settled back in, outscoring them 7-2 to finish off a 25-13 win.
On the second-to-last point, Trucker Gracie Pool seemed to have a kill that deflected off Radlinger to the ceiling but Hraby, in the back row at the time, was able to get an arm on the rebound and Miller finished off the point with a winning bump to Clintonville’s back left corner. Hraby then iced it with an ace.
“I was really nervous because when it hits the top you have no idea where it’s going,” Hraby said. “So I kind of tried to follow it and it came down and I just swung one of my arms and it came back into play and I was so excited.”
“We were up 18-11 and I told the girls Clintonville wasn’t going to go away,” Schreiner said. “We needed to keep playing our game and still attack. They did a really nice job of doing that. I thought Allie Paulson had a great game tonight. Delaney had a great night. Cami had a really good game tonight. She did some really smart things with the ball. The girls just really put it together. It was a complete team effort.”
At Tomahawk, Medford (14-19) will face a team that went 12-0 and didn’t lose a set in Great Northern Conference play this fall. The Hatchets (27-7) are led by their dominant senior force in the middle Meghan Scholz, who the Raiders will have to get out of her comfort zone to have a shot.
“One of the things we’ve been working on is blocking,” Paulson said. “Delaney and I, when we’re in the front row, it’s about just finding her and going up with that block.”
“I feel like as long as we can get a little bit of touch on Meghan in the middle our back row has a better chance,” Hraby said.
“I told the girls at the end of this match that we go up to Tomahawk now with nothing to lose,” Schreiner said. “They have everything to prove and we have nothing to lose, so let’s go take our best shot at them.”
Tonight’s winner will face either fourth-seeded Waupaca or fifth-seeded Shawano in the regional final Saturday at 7 p.m.
