The Hatchet girls cruised to a perfect 3-0 tourney to capture last Tuesday’s Everest Quad, but stumbled to a 3-2 loss two days later when hosting Mosinee in the GNC opener.
Tomahawk took down six straight games to capture Tuesday’s event, defeating Mosinee (25-14, 25-16), Clintonville (25-14, 25-17) and Everest (25-17, 25-14).
“Overall, we did a nice job passing, digging and distributing our ball and running the offense,” THS coach Jen Pfannerstill said. “We served aggressively and took teams out of their offense for most of the night, and that was the difference in the matches. Kaitlin (Doughty), Anna (Sudbury), Jenna (Otterholt) and Ashley (Eskola) served really tough and all of hitters were very effective. Kaylyn (Olson) and Anna distributed the ball to our hitters throughout the night.”
Stat leaders included: Doughty (17 k, 16 ac, 9 d); Sudbury (13 k 23 as, 8 ac, 4 d, 3 bl); Olson (7 k, 31 as, 2 d); Kellan Flynn (7 k, 7 bl); Otterholt (4 ac, 21 d); Kelsey Paramore (7 k, 4 d); Kayli Ogstad (6 k, 5 bl); Eskola (4 d).
The fourth-ranked Hatchets kept grabbing the lead in Thursday’s match, but couldn’t put Mosinee away. After winning 25-22, they lost 30-28, and after going up 2-1 with a 25-16 game, they dropped 25-20 and 15-9 games.
“On Tuesday night the girls discovered what it is going to be like every night when we play with the bullseye on our back,” Pfannerstill said. “Everyone in the conference and around the state is going to want to beat us and are going to come to play every night with nothing to lose. That’s an incredible amount of pressure, but one we need to learn to deal with.
“We didn’t execute at every position offensively, and our blocking was very sporadic. We didn’t serve receive very well either. It was a frustrating night for all of us, but one we need to learn from and come back strong and focused.”
Stats came from: Doughty (22 k, 4 ac, 10 d); Paramore (6 k); Flynn (13 k, 4 bl); Olson (8 k, 3 ac); Ogstad (8 k, 2 bl); Sudbury (4 k); Otterholt (10 d).