LOYAL VOLLEYBALL QUAD - Redmen start the volleyball season with first place at the Loyal Quad

The Rib Lake Redmen were the queens of the volleyball courts in Loyal Tuesday, winning the Greyhounds’ season-opening quad.

Other than a couple of short stretches, Rib Lake controlled the action throughout and earned 2-0 sweeps over Whitehall, Loyal and Augusta. The host Greyhounds, who beat Rib Lake last year, finished second in the quad, beating the other two squads in three-set matches.

One of Rib Lake’s slow stretches was right at the start against Whitehall. The Redmen fell behind 8-3 in the first set. A 9-3 run that ended with an ace from Coralee Glenzer and kill from Megan Komarek gave the Redmen a 12-11 lead. Weik’s kill after a long rally made it 13-12 and the Redmen seized control from there. Komarek had two aces and Madelyn Anderson made her presence felt at the net at the end of the set with two spike kills, a tip and a block with Coralee Glenzer. Rib Lake won the set 25-20.

The momentum carried into the second set. Komarek had two more aces to help Rib Lake jump ahead 11-3. Whitehall only got as close as seven the rest of the way in a 25-10 win.

The Redmen had a strong .246 team hitting percentage and had just three errors in 49 serves (93.9%). Komarek had eight kills, Tessa Weik had five and Anderson had four. Weik had 11 assists, while Madilyn Blomberg had seven. Avery Niemi had seven digs in the match, while Weik, Tahlia Scheithauer and Blomberg had five each. Komarek had five of Rib Lake’s eight aces.

Komarek had eight kills in Loyal with six of them coming right off the bat in set one. With Camryn Glenzer serving, Komarek’s opening tear helped Rib Lake jump out to a 7-2 lead, which grew to 13-5 behind a short serving run from Niemi. Komarek had an ace and back-row attack to push the lead to 21-9 and Hailey Planasch put down a kill for the final point in the 25-12 opener.

Loyal put up a better fight in set two, taking early leads of 4-1 and 7-4, but a 5-0 run put Rib Lake up 9-7. The Greyhounds got back to even twice, the last being 15-1, but Coralee Glenzer’s back-to-back kills put the Redmen ahead to stay. The Redmen won the set 25-20.

Niemi had four aces and four digs in the win. Weik had 11 assists and Blomberg had eight. Weik led the team with 10 digs. Scheithauer had seven digs, while Blomberg and Camryn Glenzer had six each. Weik had four kills. Camryn Glenzer added two solo blocks.

Rib Lake closed out the night with a dominant sweep of Augusta. The Redmen did trail 14-13 in set one, but then ripped off 12 straight points to win 25-14. It started with a Weik kill. Niemi served an ace, Coralee Glenzer had two kills, then Niemi had two more aces in the run.

The Redmen jumped ahead 16-9 in set two and weren’t threatened from there, winning 25-17.

Weik had 10 kills against the Beavers, Coralee Glenzer had five and Anderson added four. Blomberg was the assist leader with 14, while Weik had 10 and Scheithauer had two. Weik had 12 digs, Niemi had nine and Blomberg and Camryn Glenzer had five each.

Rib Lake heads to Marathon Saturday for the Red Raiders’ annual eight-team invitational. The first serves go up at 10 a.m. The Redmen will be at the Owen-Withee Quad on Tuesday and the Auburndale Quad on Sept. 4. Both start at 5 p.m.