The fourth-ranked (D2) Hatchet volleyball team visited #1 Wausau Newman (D4) on Thursday and its no surprise that the teams fashioned a classic battle. Tomahawk grabbed a 2-0 lead and Newman rallied with three straight to capture the 21-25, 13-25, 25-16, 25-19, 15-11 match.
“Our match against Newman is always a fun and very competitive one,” THS coach Amanda Kriese said. “Unfortunately, we lost the match but Newman is a great team. We need to learn from this match and move on. Its hard to swallow the loss but my hope is that we got the loss out of our system before post season play begins next week.
“The girls were very excited to play at Newman (20-2-1) because they have a small gym and it gets very loud in there. The girls started game one trading points back and forth until about 16-16 when we started to string a run of points together to distance us enough to win the first set. The second set we played our best ball of the night. We were hitting great shots, making a few blocks and serving so aggressively that we took Newman completely out of that set.
“Newman came alive in the third set. We started making unforced errors with our serves and we did not pass the ball well. We weren’t terminating and in the fourth set, it was a lot of the same thing – bad passing – and we didn’t have an answer for their big hitter, Mariah Whalen. We showed some signs of life at the end, but it was a little too late. The fifth and decisive set saw us both trading points, but still making those mistakes.”
Production was turned in by: Anna Nyberg (13 kills, 2 aces, 2 blocks, 22 digs); Becca Doughty (32 assists, 2 bl, 6 d); Hanna Meyer (9 k, 17 d); Hannah Feest (12 d); Colynn Behling (3 k, 4 bl, 4 d); Emily Schneider (5 k, 2 bl, 3 d); Lexi Graeber (7 d); Megan Lee (4 d).
Single digits
Tomahawk (25-3 overall) crushed Lakeland 25-9, 25-5, 25-5 to improve to 9-0 in the GNC last Tuesday.
“We did a good job tonight of coming out strong and focused,” Kriese said. “We played consistently throughout the match and didn’t have any letdowns. Our serving was excellent all night and kept their passers off balance. We had 24 aces, which is almost one whole game of scoring points just off of our serves. (It was) a great team effort by all the girls and everyone contributed to the match.
Offerings came from: Nyberg (21 k, 5 d); Doughty (2 ac, 38 as, 6 d); Meyer (5 k, 7 ac, 7 d); Feest (6 ac, 9 d); Schneider (4 k, 6 ac); Behling (6 k); Lexi Graeber (6 d).