The Hatchet volleyball team kicked off last week with Tuesday’s 3-1 win over Antigo, then took 2-of-3 in Saturday’s GNC #1 Meet in Rhinelander.
THS trumped Antigo 25-12, 25-23, 22-25. 25-14.
“We played with a lot of poise and confidence during the first set, our serve receive was solid and we served really aggressively,” THS Jen Pfannerstill said. “We came out so aggressive at the net and our block was well placed. Set two was another story. We were down 6-16 at one point and fought back to take that set. The girls just didn’t give up and were so active on defense. We played to win that match and left it all out there. In Game 3, a few serve receive errors and a couple of hitting errors put us in a hole and we just couldn’t catch up. However, in the fourth, I was so proud of the girls. The poise and confidence were back and we were in system for much of the set.
“If we continue to shorten the spurts where we lose mental focus we will progress to where we need to be. The team did a great job tonight of being a team and that is what it takes to win.”
Leading in production were: Anna Nyberg (18 kills, 3 blocks, 14 digs); Becca Doughty (32 assists, 4 d); Hanna Meyer (9 k, 3 aces, 2 bl, 15 d); Alex DuPlayee (3 k, 15 d); Amanda Schneider (11 d); Hanna Doughty (5 k, 5 bl); Maddie Garrison (8 d); Emily Schneider (2 bl, 6 d).
GNC #1
Only their hosts could find a way to win over THS on Saturday. Tomahawk opened with sweeps of Northland Pines (25-12, 25-10, 25-10) and Lakeland (25-14, 25-15, 25-13), before dropping a 5-setter to the Hodags (25-19, 20-25, 20-25, 25-19, 12-15).
“When we were aggressive we were able to score points,” Pfannerstill said. “When we were tentative and didn’t pass well enough to get our offense going, that’s when we struggled. In both sets we lost 20-25, we were too tentative after 20 points. You’ve got to be willing to take the risk to reap the benefits and we just didn’t feel like taking those risks. Part of that is our youth, but we need to get past that. I’d much rather see an aggressive mistake than a tentative one, or one because we lost focus.
“(Against Pines), I thought that we did a nice job of controlling the tempo of the match and keeping control of our side of the net.
“We were disciplined on defense and were able to stay aggressive, put up a solid block to keep the Lakeland hitters on their heels and did a nice job on serve receive.”
Contributions came from: Nyberg (68 k, 4 ac, 3 bl, 41 d); B. Doughty (9 k, 96 as, 4 bl, 16 d); DuPlayee (24 k, 7 ac, 45 d); Meyer (15 k, 5 ac, 3 as, 7 bl, 25 d); A. Schneider (9 ac, 3 as, 25 d); H. Doughty (9 k 15 bl, 5 d); Garrison (22 d); E. Schneider (4 k, 4 ac, 4 bl, 9 d); Megan Lee (11 as); Hannah Feest (3 d).