Big senior class looks for strong finish in 2021

MEDFORD VOLLEYBALL PREVIEW

at Spencer.

One year ago, the Medford Raiders started a rushed volleyball season with little varsity experience and little time to prepare for conference play because there were no preseason scrimmages or early season invitationals to work out the kinks.

As 2021 begins, suddenly this is a team working with a sense of urgency with two juniors and a large class of 11 seniors realizing this is their last shot to make something happen on the court as Raiders.

“I want to enjoy every minute because, like last year, you never know when our season is going to end,” senior Katie Brehm said Monday. “Just enjoy every minute.”

Fifth-year head coach Cheryl Schreiner has enjoyed each moment of the first week and a half of the new season with a team she said has come into the year with a positive attitude and a willingness to try different things. That’s good because that’s what Schreiner said the early part of the season is going to be about –– experimenting to find the right combinations.

“It’s going to be a critical part of the puzzle, finding the right combination of kids because each and every one of them can get the job done,” Schreiner said during Monday’s practice at Raider Hall. “It’s just a matter of putting the right combination out there. I have to steal a little bit from (Medford softball coach) Virg (Berndt) because he said last spring the lineup might look different from day to day, week to week. We’re looking at the same thing here. It might change on a weekly basis depending upon who’s hot.”

The Raiders opened the season Tuesday by going 2-1 at the six-team Spencer Invitational. They’ll get at least seven more matches in this weekend at the Menomonie Sprawl, which returns after a one-year hiatus, before hosting fourtime defending Great Northern Conference champion Mosinee to start league play on Sept. 2.

The roster includes 10 returning letter winners from a team that got just 12 matches in during the COVID fall of 2020 and won six of them. The Raiders were 5-4 in GNC play. Three more seniors bump into the mix this year, aiming to make playing time decisions more difficult on the coaching staff. Schreiner said she could see that coming after watching the Raiders, who were split into two teams, compete at the Summer Slam tournament in Wisconsin Dells Aug. 1314. The team actually wound up playing each other on the second day.

“If somebody is on the struggle bus on the court, it’s going to be next woman up because everyone is so talented,” Schreiner said. “I’m hoping some of these girls will just really start to shine. They’re so evenly matched. They ended up playing against each other in the Dells and the scores of those games told you how evenly matched this group of athletes is when it’s 29-27, 25-23 and 15-13. There’s just no separation.”

Even with just 12 matches last year, the lineups and rotations were fluid and looked different in mid-October than they did in mid-September and Schreiner is expecting the same this year.

“There’s a lot of seniors, and there’s a couple of very good juniors on this team,” she said. “It’s a very talented group of young ladies. They have been super in being willing to try different things. We got talking about things that worked in the past and didn’t work in the past. I’ve been experimenting, moving some kids around a little bit. We did that at the scrimmage on Saturday. They have been super open to everything.”

Saturday’s scrimmages with host D.C. Everest, Mosinee and Newman Catholic were a good starting point according to the players and their coach.

“It was good,” said Olivia Krug, a key back row player for the Raiders a year ago. “We did a lot of adjusting. A lot of players were playing in a lot of different positions they don’t normally play. I thought it went really well.”

“I thought we did really good adjusting to the spots and working together with whoever got in,” said Brehm one of a handful of players looking to make an impact in the front row.

“It also made us realize what we need to work on for this season and we have a lot to build on,” Gabby Brunner said.

The rest of the senior class includes Laurissa Klapatauskas, whose strong second half to last year propelled her to a second-team All-GNC selection; Rynn Ruesch, a three-time letter winner; Hailey Fisher, Megan Fredrikson, Katie Lybert, Autumn Krause, Abbie Frey and Emma Brost. Krause is back in the fold after missing last year while recovering from knee surgery.

“It’s neat that everyone stuck it out that long and has been working hard to make it this far,” Brunner said of the large senior class.

“Sometimes practices aren’t easy or really aren’t that fun,” Krug said. “But everyone sticks it out and tries their hardest. It’s really cool to be a senior with this many girls. It’s like a family.”

Martha Miller, a two-time letter winner and an honorable mentionee last fall in the GNC, and Allie Paulson are the juniors who will certainly get court time with the varsity.

Miller ranked second in the GNC in digs and serving percentage, Klapatauskas was third in serving percentage and fifth in digs per set, Paulson was eighth in assists per set sixth in aces. Brehm, Klapatauskas and Ruesch all were among the league leaders in blocks, Krug ranked fifth in serving percentage and Lybert seventh in assists per set.

Schreiner said she senses a different confidence level compared to last year.

“I think it’s because they were so successful in basketball and softball,” she said. “It was deer in the headlights for volleyball because we’re first one out of gate. Their confidence level is just higher. I think it has a lot to do with the success they had in other sports. They know they’re capable of doing it. I see a sense of urgency because there’s 11 seniors out there. It’s now or never pretty much. That’s been nice to see too.”

Schreiner said the strengths she sees in this group are in serving and defense.

“We’ve been insanely scrappy,” she said. “That was mentioned a lot on Saturday. They were really proud of how scrappy they were.”

“We don’t give up,” Brunner said. “We always hustle after the ball and we keep fighting the whole game. If we’re in a hole, we just always come back and work our hardest.” “We have a lot of options for front row players,” Krug said. “We’ll be a strong team at the net this year I think.” Serve receive is the biggest area the team needs to improve upon from last year, and, according to Schreiner, Saturday’s scrimmages showed there’s still work to do on that front. The schedule returns to its pre-pandemic look with a full double roundrobin of conference play, including Saturday meets at Medford on Sept. 18 and Mosinee on Oct. 9, and invitationals at Merrill on Sept. 11 and Medford on Sept. 25. “Our schedule is defi nitely packed, but that’s OK,” Schreiner said. “We talked in our team meeting about where we want to be at the end of the season. At the beginning of the season is just where we want to start. We want to be peaking at the end of the season. That’s our goal.”