This story is sponsored by: The Marshfield Tiger Booster Club
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – The Marshfield volleyball team had its offense clicking from the get-go and rolled to its first Wisconsin Valley Conference victory with a 3-0 sweep of Wausau West on Thursday night at Marshfield High School.
Marshfield won 25-16, 25-11, 25-18, to improve to 1-2 in the conference. West is now 1-1.
Stephanie Rhodes had 12 kills, Sara Dasler had 20 digs and three aces, and Jenny Scheppler added four aces for the Tigers.
The key to the Marshfield offense was junior setter Anna Ripp, who had 35 assists in the three games.
“Anna is running that offense so well,” Marshfield coach Dawn Sadowska said. “Being able to play a 5-1 (offense) and have the same, consistent setter all of the time is great for our hitters and we’ve taken advantage of that.”
After falling behind 5-1 to start the match, the Tigers reeled off 14 of the next 16 points to take control.
Ripp had 11 assists in the opening game, with Alexa Aumann the recipient of four that she put down for kills. Aumann finished with 10 kills in the match.
Marshfield continued the onslaught in Game 2, jumping out to a 9-1 lead after eight straight service points from Scheppler.
Marshfield pushed its lead to 19-3 after a kill by Rhodes and finished it off with a Ripp-to-Aumann kill, winning 25-11.
West put up a fight in the third game, leading 10-7, before the Tigers got it going again.
Ripp had a pair of aces to give Marshfield a 13-11 lead and it never trailed again.
Dasler served five points in a row, two coming on service aces, to push the Tigers’ lead to 20-13 and Aumann finished off the match with another kill.
“We were missing Ema Fehrenbach in the beginning of the season and to be able to add her into the offense and have that height to get over the block is big,” Sadowska said. “Now we have four or five really big hitters that can hit over a block, that’s really huge for us.”
Marshfield will play in the first of two Wisconsin Valley Conference meets on Saturday at Stevens Point.
“I told them, ‘There’s no letdown, you want to dominate on the weekend,’” Sadowska said. “We want to show that we weren’t all there in the beginning of the season and now we are and we are going to push through for the rest of the conference season.”