PRENTICE INVITATIONAL - Redmen rally past Gilman and Prentice to win it; Pirates take 4th

PRENTICE INVITATIONAL

Meeting officially for the first time since their WIAA Division 4 regional final last October, the Rib Lake and Gilman volleyball teams met in a pivotal semifinal match during Saturday’s Prentice Invitational that sent the teams in different directions for the rest of the afternoon.

Gilman smacked Rib Lake 25-8 in game one, but Rib Lake got off the deck and took the next two sets to win the match and reach the final where it swept the home team 25-23, 25-21 to win the championship trophy and continue its strong start to the 2024 season.

The Pirates, on the other hand, who had already lost a three-set heartbreaker to Prentice in pool play, ended their day with a 2-0 loss to Mercer in the third-place match and a disappointing 1-3 record in the seventeam tournament.

When the day was over, Rib Lake found itself with a 14-3 overall record, already giving the Redmen more wins than they had all of last season when they finished 13-27 after a loss to Gilman in the regional final match.

One of Rib Lake’s goals this season was to turn the close matches they may have lost last year into wins this year and they did that Thursday through Saturday, with three of their six wins in that stretch coming in third sets in best-of-three matches and a fourth win being the tight match with Prentice.

A tournament championship didn’t look likely in the first set against Gilman. Pirate Kenlyn Kroeplin fired off a couple of early aces, Allison Olynick had one and Abby Chaplinski had two as the Pirates tore out to a 16-2 lead. Claire Drier had two kills and Addy Vick had one to bump the lead to 23-6 before Gilman closed it out.

But Rib Lake quickly flushed that set out of its system, took a double-digit lead in game two that provided just enough cushion to absorb a late push by the Pirates. Gilman closed within 19-17 but a Tessa Weik kill, an Addison Gumz ace and a Madilyn Blomberg kill stopped the Pirates’ momentum. A tough serve by Camryn Glenzer resulted in a bad Pirate pass to reach set point and Weik’s corner kill ended the set at 25-18.

Gilman scored the first two points of game three, but a 9-0 run by Rib Lake followed, giving the Redmen control that they wouldn’t relinquish. Weik got on a roll by tooling attacks of Gilman blockers, Blomberg got a kill and almost had another hard kill, but it was dug up by Kroeplin. However, the rally ended with Weik scoring with an off-speed hit. Rib Lake’s freshman middle Megan Komarek made it 9-2 by stuffing an attempted push by Gilman’s Abby Chaplinski. The Pirates got as close as 10-6 when Vick blocked a Weik push in the middle, but two kills by Coralee Glenzer shut down Gilman’s rally.

Weik had 10 kills in the match and Coralee Glenzer had five. Gumz had 14 assists and Weik, Blomberg and Coralee Glenzer had seven digs each for Rib Lake. Camryn Glenzer had three aces.

Gilman got five kills from Drier and four from Olynick. Chaplinski had 14 assists and Kayleigh James had 14 digs, while Drier added 10.

In the final, Rib Lake got nine kills from Weik and unleashed a new weapon in freshman Madelyn Anderson, who added seven.

In set one, Gumz served back-to-back aces to push Rib Lake to a 7-5 lead. Gumz set up Weik for a kill, Anderson got her second kill of the match and Coralee Glenzer got two winners for a 17-8 lead. Anderson got two more kills for a 19-12 lead before Prentice made a run behind the serving of Aaliyah Murphy to pull within 20-19. Two aces by Luca Blomberg got Prentice into a 23-23 tie but two Buccaneer errors clinched the win for Rib Lake.

Rib Lake trailed 10-6 early in game two when the Redmen got a dig from Coralee Glenzer off a Prentice block which led to a Gumz assist on a Weik dump shot. Weik’s kill gave Rib Lake a 12-11 lead. Things went back and forth until the Redmen pushed ahead 2018. Anderson and Camryn Glenzer teamed up for a double block that stuffed Prentice’s top threat Kali Heikkinen then Blomberg rolled a winner into the middle of Prentice’s defense. It was 22-21 when Rib Lake finished with three straight points, including two kills from Weik.

Gumz had three aces in the win, Tahlia Scheithauer had 14 digs and Weik had 14 assists and Gumz added 10. The Redmen limited the potent Heikkinen to a modest eight kills. She had 23 attacks with just three errors, but the Redmen were able to dig up the majority of her attacks.

In pool play, Rib Lake swept Butternut 2516, 25-12 and Mercer 25-14, 25-21. In round one against the Midgets, Komarek had six kills, Anderson had five and Weik had four. Blomberg had three aces, Komarek had two solo blocks and Scheithauer had 10 digs, while Weik had eight. The offense was balanced against the Tigers as Weik had seven kills, Komarek had six and Blomberg and Coralee Glenzer had five apiece. Komarek and Camryn Glenzer each had two aces. Gumz had 10 aces and Weik had nine. Kiana Dallmann led Rib Lake with nine digs. Weik had seven while Scheithauer and Camryn Glenzer had six each.

Pirates beat Mellen

Gilman started its day with a win, beating Mellen in pool play 2-0. The Pirates jumped ahead quickly in the first set and weren’t seriously threatened after that, taking it 2515.

The second set was much tighter. Gilman held a three- to four-point lead through much of the set and stretched the lead to 17-12 on an Olynick block. The Granite Diggers went on a 7-2 run to tie it 19-19 and tied it again at 23-23 before a couple of mistakes sealed Gilman’s 25-23 win.

Gilman fell behind Prentice 10-5 to start round two, but got on a run and took a 14-12 lead on an Olynick kill and a Kroeplin ace. Olynick swung for two more winners that put Gilman up 16-14 and an Alison Krizan save led to a Vick kill that made it 18-14. The lead grew to 21-15 and Gilman held on from there for a 25-21 win.

Prentice responded by racing to a 9-1 lead in game two. Gilman got within 13-10 on a Chaplinski dump kill and Olynick made it 1411 with a kill. But Heikkinen got to the front row and put down three kills in a run that propelled Prentice to a 25-15 win. Prentice broke a 3-3 tie in game three with a threepoint run. Gilman got within 9-7 on a Jaylyn Orth block, but six straight Buccaneer points pushed them to a 15-10 win.

After the Rib Lake loss, Gilman was swept 25-15, 25-16 by Mercer.

“Going 1–3 on the day was not our overall goal however, the three teams we lost to are definitely solid teams,” Gilman head coach Janice Komanec said. “For the most part, they were more consistent and played smarter. We just struggled to really get rolling and stay in charge of each game.

“We definitely have some good things to take away as well as some things to work on,” she added. “Our serving was very good. As a team we served over 93%. We had multiple players serve 100% on the day. As we continue to talk about hitting consistency, our hitting percentage as a team needs to be higher. Each game we had girls come through individually, but never overall as a team. We need multiple hitters meeting the goal each game. And we need to work at meeting the goal physically but also fully understanding the goal mentally.”

For the tournament, Drier led Gilman with 18 kills. Chaplinski had 17, Olynick had 16, Aubrey Mann and Kylee Copenhaver had nine apiece and Vick had eight. Chaplinski and Kroeplin both served seven aces. James and Krizan were Gilman’s 100% servers for the day and Chaplinski was at 97%. Chaplinski also had 67 assists.

Olynick led Gilman with seven blocks. James had 56 digs, Chaplinski had 35, Drier had 24, Kroeplin had 22 and Jaylen Copenhaver had 20.

Rib Lake’s Coralee Glenzer (left photo) goes for the kill during a 2-0 win over Mercer and Gilman’s Kylee Copenhaver does the same in a 2-1 loss to Prentice. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS