Rib Lake picks up a couple wins, falls to Auburndale in crossover
RIB LAKE VOLLEYBALL
The Rib Lake volleyball team has seen enough of the Auburndale Eagles after dropping its third match to them in less than two weeks during Tuesday’s Marawood Conference Crossover challenge.
Playing in the fifth-place match of the crossovers, held at Marathon High School, Auburndale secured the victory in the best-of-five match 25-13, 25-20, 2515. Both teams finished 1-4 in their respective sides of the Marawood Conference during the season.
Tuesday’s crossovers were ruled by the North Division teams, who won the top four matches, all of which were tightly contested.
Athens took the championship match 3-1 over South champion Edgar, while Phillips handled Marathon 3-1 in the second-place matchup. Prentice was a 3-2 winner Newman Catholic in the thirdplace match and Abbotsford rallied from two sets down to defeat Wisconsin Rapids Assumption 3-2 in the fourth-place match.
Stratford got a second win for the South Division with its 3-0 sweep over Stratford in the sixth-place match.
Auburndale also beat Rib Lake 2-0 in the Marawood’s first crossover event, held Oct. 1 in Phillips. The teams just met on Saturday as well at the Edgar Invitational, with Auburndale again getting a sweep.
Rib Lake (9-22) now moves on to WIAA Division 4 post-season play, where the Redmen will face another somewhat familiar opponent.
Though they didn’t face them this year, the Redmen will return to Wisconsin Rapids to face the Assumption Royals in Tuesday’s opening round of regional play. Assumption eliminated Rib Lake in last year’s regional which, similarly to Auburndale, was the team’s third meeting in a month.
This year’s match is matchup of 12and 5-seeds in the upper bracket of the Gillett sectional. Tuesday’s winner will advance to an Oct. 20 regional semifinal against either fourth-seeded Tri-County and 13th-seeded Northland Lutheran. The regional final is set for Oct. 22.
Columbus Catholic is the top seed in the half-backet, while Athens drew the two-seed. Those two teams have owned the number-one ranking in the state in Division 4 for most of the season. Newman Catholic is seeded third.
Edgar Invite
The Redmen picked up one win in four matches played at Saturday’s six-team Edgar Invitational, good for a fourthplace finish.
In pool play to start the day, Rib Lake was no match for Marawood South champion Edgar, who rolled to a 25-8, 25-11 sweep. But Rib Lake got itself into the semifinals by taking out Colby 25-20, 2521.
Auburndale earned a 25-18, 25-18 sweep over the Redmen and Abbotsford got them 25-13, 25-12 as well to close out the day. Rib Lake played the last two matches without libero Tahlia Scheithauer Edgar beat Abbotsford and Auburndale in the last two rounds to win the tournament championship. Abbotsford placed third and Colby beat Bruce for fifth place.
A home win
On Thursday, the Lady Redmen put a notch in the win column for the first time in three weeks with a solid 3-0 nonconference sweep of visiting Northland Lutheran.
Rib Lake avenged an early-season loss the Wildcats gave them at the Aug. 27 Marathon Invitational. The Redmen won two close sets 25-20 and 26-24 before taking complete command in the third set, which they won 25-15.
Tessa Weik led Rib Lake with 17 kills in the victory, while Isabella Fallos served up four aces. Jennifer Pichea and Josie Scheithauer both had two block kills. Tahlia Scheithauer and Kamryn Annala led the team with 16 digs apiece.
