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By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – Marshfield came into Thursday’s Wisconsin Valley Conference volleyball match with Wausau East in desperate need of a win.
After going 1-2 at the first WVC tournament on Saturday, the Tigers found themselves in third place in the conference, two games behind undefeated East.
Marshfield dropped the first game and fell behind late in Game 2 before rallying and dominating the Lumberjacks the rest of the way, winning 19-25, 25-21, 25-19, 25-20, at Parent’s Night at Marshfield High School.
The Tigers improve to 4-2 in the Valley, while East drops to 5-1.
East led 20-15 late in Game 2 and it looked like the Lumberjacks were on their way to a rout. Suddenly, Marshfield’s fortunes changed.
Senior Darian Molter served eight straight points to give the Tigers a 23-20 led, and after the two teams traded sideouts, Anna Ripp served out the win to even the match.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Marshfield coach Dawn Sadowska said. “We’ve struggled all year where we dig that hole and we can’t get out of it. That’s what happened that first game. Something just flipped the switch for them. Something happened and they took over.”
Marshfield trailed 15-13 midway through the third game before rallying again. Chelsea Akin served five straight points, all earned on kills by the Tigers. Courtney Bauer, who had a team-high 19 kills for Marshfield, had a pair in the rally that put the Tigers on top 21-16 and on their way to the victory.
Marshfield closed out the match with a dominating performance in Game 4. Bauer had six kills and a service ace down the right sideline that ended the match.
Miranda Forrest added 11 kills, Molter had 18 digs and Akin added 14, Ripp had 17 assists and Sara Dasler had 16, and Stephanie Rhodes and Ellie Fehrenbach each had six block kills in the well-rounded win for the Tigers.
“Our setters did an awesome job of using all of our hitters, but of course that came from our passing,” Sadowska said. “That was something we were struggling with. The fact that we were able to use all of our hitters, they (East) weren’t able to block us and defense was a lot harder for them.”
Marshfield is off until next Thursday when it plays at Stevens Point.