Familiar faces to lead Raiders’ new volleyball staff

MEDFORD VOLLEYBALL

For nearly a decade when it’s come to volleyball in Medford, two of the most familiar names to anyone involved have been Ashley and AJ.

Which makes it no surprise the sisters will be back on the bench this fall, leading the Raiders at the varsity level.

Ashley Jochimsen-McCarron is the program’s new head coach, succeeding Cheryl Schreiner who stepped down from the position at the end of March. Jochimsen- McCarron’s hiring was made official in May and a rebuilt coaching staff has been formed and is ready to roll for the first day of practice, which will be Monday, Aug. 14. A 2008 graduate of Medford Area Senior High, Jochimsen-Mc Carron will have her older sister, 2003 Medford graduate Amanda “AJ” Lange at her side as the varsity assistant.

“I have some big shoes to fill with Dave (Vaara) and Cheryl and the wealth of knowledge that both of them have,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “I’m just excited to bring both strengths that they had and continue to incorporate that and bring my own philosophy into it as well and just be that highly-respected volleyball program that Medford is. Just continue to build those student- athletes with high integrity and that positive influence. That’s the big thing. I’m so excited. It will be so exciting.”

An all-conference setter when she graduated from Medford, Jochimsen-McCarron went on to graduate from UW-Stout, where she got some experience coaching Menomonie’s JV team and then returned home, where she teaches at Medford Area Elementary School. She immediately jumped into volleyball coaching under Vaara on the Raiders’ staff upon her return in the fall of 2012.

The next year, Jochimsen-McCarron and Lange took over the leadership of the local club program, the Medford Storm. They co-coached the JV team under Schreiner through 2020.

After a little time away from high school volleyball, Jochimsen-McCarron and Lange coached the JV softball team together this spring.

“That was a blessing,” she said. “That was so much fun with those girls. Just to be back with the girls was exciting.”

Lange will take over sole directorship of the Storm program, though Jochimsen-Mc-Carron will still offer her help.

Interestingly, one of the other strong candidates for the job was Vaara, who stepped down in the fall of 2016 after a coaching ca- reer in volleyball and golf that landed him in Medford’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

“Dave and I worked really well together,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “If Dave would’ve gotten it, I was coming back. It was one of those things. He’s going to continue reffing, but I know that he will guide me and help through all of that stuff. We were just texting today (June 21) about an app for stats and things like that. Between him and Kris Krug and Barb Anderson, I just feel like they’ve all shown me what good coaches can be. It’s been fun to just watch them and learn from them.”

Many of Jochimsen-McCarron’s assists in high school went to Grace Krug, who is another addition to the staff. Also a 2008 Medford graduate and an All-Lumberjack Conference performer at the time, Krug is now a teacher at Medford Area Middle School and coached eighth grade volleyball last fall. She held the head coaching job at Green Bay Southwest High School for five years before returning home.

The new JV coach will be Rachel Hovde, a new high school physical education teacher who arrives from Clear Creek Amana High School in Iowa, where she was the setting coach on a staff that led the team to the state’s 4A championship match last fall. Athens native Kaitlyn Brooks has been hired as the JV2 coach. Brooks, a new fourth grade teacher in the upcoming school year, was a standout middle before graduating from Athens in 2018 and was on the 2016 that, coincidentally, Schreiner led to state in her final season coaching the Blue Jays.

“We have a lot of different skills covered,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “We all played different roles so that will be really exciting to bring the knowledge we have of those specific roles and just bring it all together. With the knowledge that all of us have, I’m so excited to see how it unfolds.”

Of course the most important ingredient to the mix will be the players. In the 2023 season, Medford will be a bit on the young side for the second straight year, but the Raiders will start out with a little more varsity experience than they did last year when they got continually better as the year went on and finished 7-5 in the GNC and 14-20 overall.

“The girls are very competitive and they work hard together,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “They’ve already established the atmosphere of hard work and learning while having fun yet. That’s been exciting. They have had some open gym time. We’ve done that. We’ve started summer league. They’ve just really been working hard which has been very exciting to see. They seem very excited.

“I think we’re at mid to high 30s for numbers. It’ll be a nice group,” she added. “I think as of now there are four seniors signed up. They have really done a nice job of taking those open gyms and coming up with different things to do. It’s their open gym. I’m just there to open and close it. The juniors have helped too and together they’ve done a nice job at coming up with drills and working on different skills and having fun. They’ve been great leaders.”

The volleyball program historically has been one of high student interest and contingencies are being worked out if a third JV team is needed this fall. One thing Jochmisen-McCarron and Lange plan to keep doing is trying to maintain that interest through early introduction to the sport.

“This spring we did a little kids volleyball camp for kindergarten through fourth grade and we’ll still continue to do that,” she said. “It will probably be a joint effort between Medford volleyball and Medford Storm. We want to try to offer those youth things as well. Volleyball is a hard one to offer to the youth just because it’s a hard skill but we’re excited to continue to offer those. I remember going to camps when I was a little girl in the summer. That was a big thing. We want to just to get those out there and get girls excited about volleyball.”

Schreiner’s resignation followed six solid seasons leading Medford’s program, which included high-water marks of 22-14 in her first season of 2017 and 27-12 the following year. The Raiders finished second or third in the GNC in each season. Her coaching stint coincided with Mosinee’s five-year run as a GNC juggernaut, included the shortened Covid season of 2020 and Tomahawk had a dominant squad that went 12-0 and beat Medford three times last fall. Medford’s overall record under Schreiner was 10683 and its GNC record was 44-25.