reer in volleyball and golf ….

reer in volleyball and golf that landed him in Medford’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

“Dave and I worked really well together,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “If Dave would’ve gotten it, I was coming back. It was one of those things. He’s going to continue reffing, but I know that he will guide me and help through all of that stuff. We were just texting today (June 21) about an app for stats and things like that. Between him and Kris Krug and Barb Anderson, I just feel like they’ve all shown me what good coaches can be. It’s been fun to just watch them and learn from them.”

Many of Jochimsen-McCarron’s assists in high school went to Grace Krug, who is another addition to the staff. Also a 2008 Medford graduate and an All-Lumberjack Conference performer at the time, Krug is now a teacher at Medford Area Middle School and coached eighth grade volleyball last fall. She held the head coaching job at Green Bay Southwest High School for five years before returning home.

The new JV coach will be Rachel Hovde, a new high school physical education teacher who arrives from Clear Creek Amana High School in Iowa, where she was the setting coach on a staff that led the team to the state’s 4A championship match last fall. Athens native Kaitlyn Brooks has been hired as the JV2 coach. Brooks, a new fourth grade teacher in the upcoming school year, was a standout middle before graduating from Athens in 2018 and was on the 2016 that, coincidentally, Schreiner led to state in her final season coaching the Blue Jays.

“We have a lot of different skills covered,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “We all played different roles so that will be really exciting to bring the knowledge we have of those specific roles and just bring it all together. With the knowledge that all of us have, I’m so excited to see how it unfolds.”

Of course the most important ingredient to the mix will be the players. In the 2023 season, Medford will be a bit on the young side for the second straight year, but the Raiders will start out with a little more varsity experience than they did last year when they got continually better as the year went on and finished 7-5 in the GNC and 14-20 overall.

“The girls are very competitive and they work hard together,” Jochimsen-McCarron said. “They’ve already established the atmosphere of hard work and learning while having fun yet. That’s been exciting. They have had some open gym time. We’ve done that. We’ve started summer league. They’ve just really been working hard which has been very exciting to see. They seem very excited.

“I think we’re at mid to high 30s for numbers. It’ll be a nice group,” she added. “I think as of now there are four seniors signed up. They have really done a nice job of taking those open gyms and coming up with different things to do. It’s their open gym. I’m just there to open and close it. The juniors have helped too and together they’ve done a nice job at coming up with drills and working on different skills and having fun. They’ve been great leaders.”

The volleyball program historically has been one of high student interest and contingencies are being worked out if a third JV team is needed this fall. One thing Jochmisen-McCarron and Lange plan to keep doing is trying to maintain that interest through early introduction to the sport.

“This spring we did a little kids volleyball camp for kindergarten through fourth grade and we’ll still continue to do that,” she said. “It will probably be a joint effort between Medford volleyball and Medford Storm. We want to try to offer those youth things as well. Volleyball is a hard one to offer to the youth just because it’s a hard skill but we’re excited to continue to offer those. I remember going to camps when I was a little girl in the summer. That was a big thing. We want to just to get those out there and get girls excited about volleyball.”

Schreiner’s resignation followed six solid seasons leading Medford’s program, which included high-water marks of 22-14 in her first season of 2017 and 27-12 the following year. The Raiders finished second or third in the GNC in each season. Her coaching stint coincided with Mosinee’s five-year run as a GNC juggernaut, included the shortened Covid season of 2020 and Tomahawk had a dominant squad that went 12-0 and beat Medford three times last fall. Medford’s overall record under Schreiner was 10683 and its GNC record was 44-25.