Progress is evident in Mosinee match and victory at Lakeland

MEDFORD VOLLEYBALL

The Medford Raiders didn’t win their match at Mosinee Tuesday, but with a split of their first two Great Northern Conference volleyball matches they’ve shown they don’t plan to be pushover in league play despite the vast varsity inexperience they started the season with.

The Raiders followed up Thursday’s 3-0 sweep at Lakeland with a 3-1 loss to the Indians, who extended that program’s GNC winning streak to 57 matches by displaying a little more firepower at the net than Medford could handle.

But, there is no doubt the Raiders have made big strides since facing Mosinee in a four-team scrimmage at D.C. Everest two and a half weeks earlier.

“Significantly better,” was how senior Martha Miller termed it. “This looked like really good volleyball. I think we’re finally putting it together as a team.”

“It was a good battle, it really was,” head coach Cheryl Schreiner said. “In the first game you could tell the girls were nervous. We have sophomores and freshmen on the court who’d never stepped on the varsity court before this year and a couple of juniors that had never stepped on a varsity court before and you could tell. But in that second set they started to flow and they just played. They didn’t overthink, they just played.”

Now 6-8 overall, the Raiders were shaky in game one, as the Indians, fueled by their boisterous home crowd pulled away mid-game for a comfortable 25-13 win. Mosinee started game two with a 5-1 lead, but Medford got a couple of points and then settled in. Delaney Hraby got a block kill and a tip from the middle to pull the Raiders within 7-5 and Allie Paulson’s ace tied it at 8-8. The Raiders went on a 5-1 spurt from there, which included a Martha Miller winner through a double block and a Cameron Rau winner off a block, to make it 14-9. The Raiders held on to a three- to five-point advantage until the Indians cut it to 19-18, but a missed serve and a hitting error by the Indians started a 6-0 Medford run that won the set 25-18. Rachel Wesle had a kill and two more Indian errors ended it.

While Medford isn’t blessed with heavy hitters, the Raiders have turned to keeping mistakes to a minimum to hang with teams.

“That’s definitely real important, especially since we don’t have a ton of height,” Miller said. “We still have good hitters but we don’t have the big 6-foot players. So to be able to stay scrappy in the back row and pick up passes that are over our blocks is really important to keep the ball in play.”

Medford had just one service error in 77 attempts Tuesday and had just three in Lakeland.

Medford turned a quick 4-0 deficit in game three into a 5-5 tie, highlighted by a Miller kill and a dig by DeLana Radlinger that fell on Mosinee’s side for a point. From there, Mosinee slowly but surely built a lead that reached eight at 22-14 and 23-15. The Indians’ new standout hitter from the left side, junior MaKayla Weisner had two big kills down the stretch to close out the 25-19 win.

Game four was tighter. Mosinee led 7-3 early, Medford got within 9-8 and tied it at 11-11 before the Indians went on just a little surge that put them up by four and the Raiders could never quite close that gap. They got within 19-18 following a Cameron Rau kill and a Mosinee hitting error, but Malina Carattini’s hit led to a Raider error, Amber Gonzalez and Tristan Wicklund got kills to put Mosinee on the cusp of victory and sophomore middle Maggie Woller ended it at 25-19 by getting the call on a shot to the sideline and a tip.

The set win was Medford’s first since losing five-game and four-game matches to Mosinee in 2019.

“Honestly this game is nothing to hang our heads about even though we lost,” Miller said. “We won that one set and we stuck with them the whole time. That is pretty impressive, so it means that we’re up there with them.”

Miller was Medford’s kill leader with 11 and she had just two errors in 36 attacks. Hraby had four kills, while Rachel Wesle had three and Cameron Rau, Paulson and Toryn Rau had two each.

Megan Schaefer had 12 assists and Paulson added eight. Paulson had two of Medford’s three aces. Miller had 15 digs and Schaefer had 12.

“We didn’t beat ourselves,” Schreiner said. “We didn’t make those goofy unforced errors. This group, they don’t get down on each other, they don’t get down on themselves. They build themselves up and they go back out there and just play. There are more good things to come.”

Medford is off until Tuesday when it faces Northland Pines in the home opener at Raider Hall at 7 p.m.

Medford 3, Lakeland 0

Medford got Great Northern Conference play off to a strong start Thursday with an impressive 3-0 sweep at Lakeland in a contest that, on paper, appeared to be an even matchup going in.

This one turned for good in the first set when Medford overcame an early deficit to win 25-21. The confidence gained in that set carried through to the second where the Raiders held off Lakeland in another close one 25-23.

With full momentum, the Raiders kept the pressure on in the third set and completed the sweep 25-14.

“It was a great start to conference play for the team,” Schreiner said. “We gained some confidence and trust in each other. It also showed that we can pick each other up. We were down by a lot the first set and somehow found a way to win together. This team never hung their heads and stayed upbeat the entire match. I’m very proud of them.”

Paulson was Medford’s kill leader in the match with 13. From there it was balanced. Hraby had five kills, Toryn Rau had four and Cameron Rau, Wesle and Miller had three apiece. Schaefer had 20 assists and Paulson added 11. Schaefer and Hraby served two aces apiece.

Medford had just three service errors in 63 attempts (95.2%).

Miller had a team-high 21 digs, Radlinger had 20 and Rylee Hraby added 18. Paulson, Wesle and Delaney Hraby each had a solo block.