A year older, Rib Lake’s young team more confident this fall

RIB LAKE VOLLEYBALL PREVIEW

If there’s one prep sports team locally where all signs point to an upward trajectory this fall, it’s probably Rib Lake’s volleyball team.

Those looking in from the outside may say the starting point isn’t very high coming off a 9-23 season in 2022 that included a 1-4 mark in the Marawood North. Internally, however, the optimism for this year is about much more than an improved winning percentage.

The Lady Redmen lost just one senior from a 2022 team that often had more freshmen on the floor at one time than all of the other classes combined. Obviously growth from the freshmen would be expected going into their sophomore year. What they learned last year, the motivation to work and improve themselves in the off-season and the confidence built from that is what has third-year head coach Heather Weik and her team so excited to get the 2023 season started.

“We were a little unsure of it last year,” said sophomore Tessa Weik, who has quickly developed into one of the team’s leaders. “Now we’re kinda getting the hang of it and becoming more familiar I would say. Joining with the upperclassmen has been good, they’ve been really good leaders for us.”

“It’s fun to watch,” said senior Josie Scheithauer, who is the team’s veteran entering her fourth varsity season. “It’s fun to watch them be confident and understand they can play with all the girls that they’re competing against.”

“I feel like there’s a little bit more confidence,” Heather Weik said during the team’s practice Friday morning. “Last year I feel like we were a little scared. There was a fear out there, putting pressure on some of the inexperience at the varsity level. Now I feel like we have that under our belt this year. I feel like there’s more confidence and therefore I feel like that’s going to turn into more aggressiveness. I just feel like that’s coming.”

The Redmen also took their expected physical growth to another level in the off-season by making a concerted effort to hit the weight room, which they feel will definitely pay off.

“We’re getting a lot stronger,” Tessa Weik said. “From going into the weight room, we’re hitting a little harder, jumping higher. We’re getting stronger, faster, everything like that.”

“A lot of the girls, we’ve been in the gym all summer, so it’s been helpful,” Scheithauer said.

The Redmen got their first chance to show how much they’ve improved Tuesday while competing at the seasonopening Loyal Quad. Rib Lake is at the always- competitive Marathon Invitational Saturday and will hit the Owen-Withee Quad on Tuesday before opening Marawood North play Sept. 5 with the home opener against projected title contender Athens.

Enthusiasm for volleyball in Rib Lake remains high this fall with 28 girls out to start the season. That’s enough for three teams.

Coach Weik has a list of 14 girls who have been getting varsity reps in practice that includes six seniors, Addison Gumz, the lone junior, and seven sophomores.

The projected starting lineup to begin the season won’t change much from last fall. Tessa Weik, a second-team All-Marawood North selection last fall, and senior Jennie Pichea will be in the middle flanked by Scheithauer and sophomore Camryn Glenzer on the right side and sophomore Coralee Glenzer on the left side. Sophomore Madilyn Blomberg has worked her way into the rotation as another outside hitter.

The Redmen like what they have for hitting ability from the front row.

“It’s getting a lot better than last year,” Tessa Weik said. “We’re getting a lot stronger and we’re able to get a lot higher.”

“We’re learning how to work with the people that we have,” Scheithauer said. “We’re not all 6-foot. We’re pretty average height, but we’re learning how to work with that and figuring out the best ways to do things like covering the most ground or hitting the right spots, avoiding blocks, putting hits where you want it.”

Sophomore Tahlia Scheithauer, who got honorable mention in the North last fall, remains a player to watch as Rib Lake’s libero. Gumz and senior Isabelle Fallos are battling for time as setters and Weik will set too when she rotates to the back row.

“Tahlia is even better (this year),” Heather Weik said. “She is just a must in the back row. She’s a game changer.”

“I don’t know how she’s completely whole,” Josie Scheithauer said of Tahlia Scheithauer. “She spends so much time going to the ground.”

Also vying for varsity time are seniors Leah Chmielowiec, Tessa Krause and Erin Bohmbach and sophomores Isabelle Gumz and Avery Niemi.

No matter who ends up playing where and how much, the team remains committed to being just that, a team, which has been a point of emphasis coach Weik has stressed since she took over the program.

“They’re a great group of girls,” she said. “Practices have had a lot of intensity, a lot of positivity. They’re very team focused, but yet they’re still pushing each other to get better.”

“We talk about it a lot, but we celebrate each other a lot,” Josie Scheithauer said. “It’s helpful to everything. It keeps the whole team up, but then it builds that person’s confidence. Then whoever happens to do it right the next time, that person gains confidence.”

More wins is an obvious goal for this year, but the team talked more in-depth about goals late last week, took a hard look at some of last year’s weaknesses and found several areas where they want to get better.

“They’ve set some goals,” Heather Weik said. “They want to double the amount of blocks that we had last year. Our hit percentage, we want to see that improve. A big one I’ve been emphasizing is our first-ball kills. There’s research that says that with the more first-ball kills you have, you’re going to be more successful. I’m really pushing the first-ball kills. We’re continuing to work on that court awareness too. That’s going to come with the confidence part of it.”

Serving will be another point of emphasis.

Rib Lake was solid in that department in 2022, putting 90% of their serves in play. Coach Weik said the team talked about bumping that up to 98%, a figure that is probably realistic over the course of a full season. More realistically, the team wants to use serving as more of a weapon.

“We’re serving to score more than just getting it over,” Tessa Weik said.

“That is definitely something we’re working on.”

“I’m not necessarily concerned about (serve percentage) because I think we’re starting to be a little bit more aggressive on our serves too,” Heather Weik said. “We want to score more off of our serve. We’ve been working on a lot of offspeed stuff too. We’ll see how it works.”

The Marawood North looks to be quite competitive with Athens, Abbotsford and Prentice all bringing back all-conference talent. Athens is the defending champion, coming off a 5-0 season in the North and a WIAA Division 4 state run that ended its year at 37-8. Phillips lost the most to graduation out of the North’s contenders. The Loggers were 4-1 in league play and 25-9 overall, while Prentice was just 3-2 in the league but 32-7 overall and won a Division 4 regional title.

The Redmen had added a couple of new wrinkles to the schedule, including a weekend stay in Wisconsin Dells Sept. 8-9. In October, Rib Lake will play in a different WIAA Division 4 sectional, moving to the northwest quadrant. The good news there is perennial power McDonell Central is no longer in that sectional bracket, having bumped up to Division 3.

“We talked about it as a team and discussed what we think we’re capable of,” Scheithauer said. “We all have the same mindset and same goals and I think that’s good. We’re all working toward that.”