This story is sponsored by: The Marshfield Tiger Booster Club
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – Time after time, the Marshfield volleyball team found itself in a hole during its WIAA Division 1 regional semifinal match against Hudson.
The Tigers, who have battled injuries to almost everyone on their roster at some point this season, were playing without two starters again on Thursday and seemed out of rhythm at times, but each time they managed to get things together to pull out a 3-1 victory at The Boson Company Fieldhouse at Marshfield High School.
Marshfield won 25-22, 16-25, 25-22, 26-24, to advance to Saturday’s D-1 regional final at top-seed Eau Claire Memorial. The match will start at 7 p.m.
“Memorial doesn’t have a real go-to player, they just don’t make many mistakes,” Marshfield coach Dawn Sadowska said. “They make you make the mistake. If we can get our offense going, I think we have a real good chance at beating them.”
The Tigers trailed 18-10 in Game 1 and 19-14 in Game 3 before rallying each time.
Kathryn Nesbitt, Stephanie Rhodes and Ema Fehrenbach each had two kills in a 15-4 run to end the first game as the Tigers stormed back to grab the win.
Hudson never trailed in Game 2, capitalizing on a number of Marshfield errors to pull away by scoring 13 of the final 19 points.
That momentum carried into the third game, with the Raiders building a 19-14 lead despite very few offensive executions.
With the swing of the match fully in Hudson’s favor, the Tigers had to turn things around quickly or their season might be in jeopardy.
They did, scoring seven of eight points to take a 21-20 lead. After Hudson pulled even on two occasions, the Tigers closed out the win on the serve of Ema Fehrenbach. Three straight kills by Rhodes put Marshfield up 2-1.
“We’ve got a young team and I think we really needed to just get rid of these first tournament game jitters, I am hoping,” Sadowska said. “Now that it is over with, we can go into Saturday night a little more confident.
“We were making some mistakes where it was just a matter of not talking – things we have been really doing well in practice.”
Game 4 was tight all the way with neither team leading by more than three point.
A kill by Lauren Gilbertson, a block kill by Rhodes and an ace from Sara Dasler put Marshfield up 22-20.
Hudson rallied to tie the game at 24-24 before kills by Rhodes and Gilbertson ended it for the Tigers.
“Our bench has been huge this year for us,” Sadowska said. “They’ve stepped up and they want to keep winning. It’s nice to bring them in and see them do what they were doing in practice and be successful with it.”
Rhodes led Marshfield with 16 kills and four blocks, Ema Fehrenbach added nine kills, Dasler had 18 digs and two aces, and Anna Rip had 38 assists and four blocks for Marshfield.