Tigers improve to 5-3 in Valley

By Paul Lecker

Sports Reporter

MARSHFIELD — With matches looming against the top two teams in the Wisconsin Valley Conference on Saturday, the Marshfield volleyball team wanted to make sure it took care of the business at hand Thursday.

The Tigers started all three games strong and went on to beat Wisconsin Rapids 25-14, 25-11, 25-10 in a WVC match Oct. 6 at Marshfield High School.

Marshfield is now 5-3 heading into the second conference tournament on Saturday at D.C. Everest. The Tigers will play first-place Everest and second-place Merrill as they look to make a push up the standings with only one week remaining in the regular season.

Marshfield senior Stephanie Rhodes had eight kills in the victory, pushing her career total to 1,001, a milestone that coach Dawn Sadowska said was well-earned.

“She’s been on varsity since she was a freshman, and year after year she’s been getting better,” Sadowska said. “We’ve asked more and more of her. She’s such a versatile hitter, and this year her blocking has been better than it ever has been for us.”

Anna Ripp, who passed the 2,000-assist mark in her career last week, started the first game by serving six points in a row — three were aces — to push Marshfield out to a quick 7-1 lead.

The Tigers finished just as strong, scoring the final eight points of the set, the final point coming on a Jamila Ougayour kill.

Ripp had two aces to help Marshfield build a 5-0 lead to start Game 2 and served eight-straight points to begin the third set as the Tigers ran out to a 9-0 advantage. Marshfield was never challenged in either game.

Ripp finished with 28 assists and six service aces, Alexa Aumann had a team-high 11 kills, and Maureen Cassidy had 15 digs to top Marshfield. The Tigers finished with 11 service aces overall.

“Our plan was to serve aggressive, and we’ve been working on trying to run things faster,” Sadowska said. “I said every free ball, ‘We have to go quick because that’s our plan for this weekend,’ and they did a really good job of that.”

(Hub City Times Sports Reporter Paul Lecker is also the publisher of MarshfieldAreaSports.com.)