The Altoona girls’ volleyball team kicked off the regular season with a 3-0 record at the Greenwood Quad on Tuesday, August 26.

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   In 2007, the Altoona High School volleyball team lost to West Salem in the sectional semifinals, which put an end to their postseason run. In 2008, the Railroaders hope to rebound from the loss and enjoy a successful season.

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Despite leading late in all four games of their sectional semifinal match with West Salem, Altoona’s volleyball season came to an end on Thursday, October 25, as the Railroaders lost 3-1 at Black River Falls.

Altoona stormed back from a 13-8 deficit in the opening game to take a 22-18 lead, but three consecutive service errors left the door open for the Panthers, who tied the set at 24- and 25-all before back-to-back Aimee Reyzer kills finally put the game away for the Railroaders, 27-25.

But, just as they had done in defeating Black River Falls to get to the sectional round, the Panthers would prove adept at coming back from late deficits. Altoona again trailed by as many as five points early on in game 2, but went up 22-17 on Reyzer’s fifth kill of the game. From there, however, West Salem rattled off eight of the final nine points – the Railroaders’ only score was on a Panther service error – to tie the match at 1-1 with a 25-23 game victory.

Altoona appeared to have quelled Panthers’ momentum in the third game, as the Railroaders led much of the way, but once again, West Salem put together a big finish to come back for a win. This time, Altoona held a 20-18 lead, only to see the Panthers respond with seven consecutive points to take the game, 25-20.

The Railroaders struggled early in the final game as West Salem jumped in front 5-1, but Altoona battled back the entire game before a four-point run that was capped by a Sarah Nielsen block kill finally gave them the lead at 21-20. From there, both teams exchanged points until Altoona led 25-24, but the Panthers finished strong one last time, recording three more points to win the game 27-25 and advance to the sectional final.

“I’m glad we played as strong as we did, that we did not fold and die, especially after game 2,” said Altoona coach Ron “Duff” Martin. “We continued to stay strong and we continued to play well.”

Reyzer finished with 18 kills for Altoona, while Brittany Gregorich added 10 and Nielsen seven. Nielsen and Rachel Larson each had five blocks, while Reyzer and Tiffany Gregorich had 21 digs apiece to lead the Railroader defense. But perhaps the most significant statistic for Altoona was their 12 service errors, several of which came at key moments.

“We probably had more service errors tonight than we had all of regionals combined, all three games,” said Martin. “That was one thing that just kind of surprised me. I can understand us being aggressive on our serve and wanting to get points, but we have to pass… we have to pass better than what we did, because if you don’t, you’re not going to score points.”

The game was the final one for five Railroader seniors: Reyzer, Tiffany Gregorich, Ashley Robinson, Krista Hines, and Heather Olson.

“In all my years coaching, this has probably been the (closest) team I’ve ever worked with,” said Martin. “(They are) players that just really truly care about each other and really work their butts off, and aren’t afraid to chew each other out when they need to. But they’re also not afraid to praise each other when it’s time to praise each other.”

“It is truly the epitome of a family when you talk about sports… this was a team that demonstrated that 100 percent,” he added. “I think that’s probably the greatest accomplishment. That’s greater than any trophy that we’ll ever put in that trophy case. It’s better than any championship banner we’ll ever hang up at Altoona. It’s what those girls have done for each other.”

The Altoona volleyball team never trailed at any point in their regional semifinal match with Mosinee on Friday, October 19, defeating the Indians 25-18, 25-15, 25-9.

Aimee Reyzer had 12 kills and Brittany Gregorich added seven, while Sarah Nielsen, Krista Hines, and Tiffany Gregorich had two blocks apiece for the Railroaders, who advanced to Saturday’s regional final against Medford with the win.

“(Mosinee is) a good team,” said Altoona coach Ron “Duff” Martin. “But we knew what we needed to do against that team, and we executed it.”

That execution included grabbing an early 6-2 lead in the first game and later getting seven consecutive points to break open what had been a close 10-7 contest. Mosinee threatened in game 2, rebounding from a 7-0 deficit to pull within 13-12, but the Railroaders took control from there to win 25-15 before dominating the final game 25-9 to seal the victory.

“We turned our blocking game around,” said Martin. “That was key to our defense. If we can get Sarah and Rachel (Larson) and Krista and Aimee and Brit or whoever’s up there blocking to just get a touch on the ball, slow it down a little bit and let our defense recover the touch… it will make it so much easier for us and it will make their hitters think twice.”

Martin also liked what he saw from his team at the service line, where they were led by Brittany Gregorich’s 20-for-20, seven-ace performance. The Railroaders erred only three times in 73 attempts and racked up 15 aces as a team.

The Railroaders made the long road trip to Tomahawk the following night, where they defeated Medford 3-0 for the regional championship.

The Altoona volleyball team claimed the regional championship by knocking off top-seeded Medford in three games at Tomahawk on Saturday night, 25-21, 25-13, 25-14.

Altoona got off to a slow start in the opening game, trailing 14-10 at one point, but four consecutive points tied the game, and after the Raiders went back ahead 16-14, Monica Rasmussen served as the Railroaders took the next seven points to go ahead 21-16 en route to their 25-21 game win.

“The girls were very nervous and came out and struggled,” said Altoona coach Ron “Duff” Martin. “But once the girls got energized and once we got a couple kills and once we got a couple blocks… it took us a little bit to get going, but they did get fired up.”

Once Altoona had the momentum, the Railroaders made sure it never swung back to Medford. The Raiders threatened midway through each of the final two games, but both times Altoona responded with six consecutive points to regain control. Medford pulled within 11-10 in game 2, but a service error gave Altoona a needed side out, and Sarah Nielsen and Tiffany Gregorich recorded kills as the Railroaders opened up a 17-10 advantage. Game 3 saw a similar situation when Medford came back to within 13-11, but Aimee Reyzer started the Altoona run with three straight kills and added another three points later to extend the lead to 19-11. Back-to-back kills by Krista Hines helped the Railroaders finish off the match with a 25-14 win.

“(We) had so much energy,” said Martin. “(Medford’s) team just quieted down, their fans even quieted down… it seemed like when their fans started clapping and cheering, it got our girls going even more.”

Reyzer finished with 18 kills and Gregorich set 40 assists in the match for the Railroaders, both personal bests in three-game matches. Gregorich also led the Altoona defense with 13 digs, while Reyzer added 10.

They were hardly the only players with superlative performances on the evening. Brittany Gregorich had eight kills and 12 digs, front row hitters Rachel Larson, Nielsen, and Hines recorded four kills apiece, and Rasmussen went 13-for-13 with a team-high three service aces. Ashley Robinson and Gwen Frederiksen added 10 and nine digs, respectively.

“We are such a unified team,” said Reyzer. “We just played so well together… it was a team win tonight.”

For Martin, getting to the game was the hardest part. He was the best man in a friend’s wedding in Milwaukee at 2:00 and had to charter a private flight directly into Tomahawk for over $2,000 in order to make the 7:00 game.

“It was (worth the flight),” said Martin. “It’s easy for me to say that because we won, but if we had played like this and lost, it still would have been worth the flight. It just confirmed to me that this is where I wanted to be. I don’t have kids of my own, so to me I’m giving back to my kids, because these are my kids for the time being. It was worth it. It was so worth it.”

Travel arrangements were easier to make Thursday when the Railroaders took on West Salem in the sectional semifinals at Black River Falls. That match was played after press time and will be featured in next week’s edition of the Star. A win on Thursday would advance the Railroaders to the sectional final on Saturday night in Durand against either Hayward or Osceola.

First Team
Tiffany Gregorich, Sr., Altoona
Aimee Reyzer, Sr., Altoona
Cody VanDenHeuvel, Sr., Cadott
Jess Freagon, Sr., C.F. McDonell
Clare Bohrer, Sr., E.C. Regis
Tessa Warner, Sr., E.C. Regis

Second Team
Ashley Meinen, Sr., C.F. McDonell
Cari Loomis, Sr., C.F. McDonell
Brittany Gregorich, Jr., Altoona
Jessica Schroeder, Sr., Augusta
Alix Gabus, Sr., Fall Creek
Jordyn Mallo, Jr., Gilman
Brianna Plank, Jr., E.C. Regis

Honorable Mention
Sarah Nielsen, Jr., Altoona
Alison Kaeding, Sr., Augusta
Allison McGinnis, Sr., Cadott
Sarah Lundberg, Jr., Osseo-Fair.Hailey Hart, Sr., Osseo-Fairchild
Megan Smoczyk, Sr., E.C. Regis
Krista Lund, Sr., E.C. Regis

The Altoona volleyball team didn’t allow for much suspense in defeating Northland Pines 25-10, 25-10, 25-7 in their first-round regional playoff game at Altoona on Tuesday night.

The Railroaders jumped out to a 12-3 lead in the opening game against the seventh-seeded Eagles and extended that to 15 points before Northland Pines recovered to take five of the next six points to pull within 21-10. From there, however, it was all Railroaders, as Altoona scored the game’s final four points en route to a 25-10 win.

Northland Pines kept things a bit closer in the second game, but the Railroaders finished the set with seven points in a row to again win by a 25-10 margin.

By the early going of game 3, the biggest remaining drama was whether Altoona senior Aimee Reyzer would attempt the jump serve the Railroaders’ student section was urging her to try. Staked to a 14-2 lead, Reyzer complied and promptly recorded an ace, eliciting the largest cheer of the night from the crowd. Altoona would parlay that 15-2 lead into a 25-7 win to seal the victory, advancing the Railroaders to the regional semifinals and ending the Eagles’ season.

Reyzer finished 14-for-16 with five aces in service and also led the Railroaders with 10 kills on the night. Also among the kill leaders for Altoona were Brittany Gregorich with nine and Rachel Larson with five. Ashley Robinson led the Railroaders with 14 digs, while Tiffany Gregorich had a team-high 27 assists to go along with her 9-for-9, three-ace serving performance.

The win means Altoona will host third-seeded Mosinee in the regional semifinals on Friday night. The winner of that game would play either top-seeded Medford or fifth-seeded Tomahawk on Saturday in Tomahawk.

“We know the teams get a bit tougher now,” said Altoona coach Ron “Duff” Martin. “These are teams we haven’t seen before so we don’t really know what to expect. We know Mosinee was number two over on the Eastern Cloverbelt side, so we know that they’re a fairly decent team.”

Martin said this week’s remaining practices will be key in the getting the Railroaders ready to play the tougher competition that the team will see this weekend.

“Our practices are going to be really crucial. It will be up to the coaching staff to develop a practice that really pushes them,” he said. “One of the things we’re going to have to really work on is defense, being able to continue to dig that ball up.”

But more than anything, Martin was just happy to get through the first playoff game and move on to the second.

“I’m glad we got this one out of the way, so now we can work towards the next one,” said Martin. “The girls know our goal is, one game at a time.”

Just five days after the Altoona and Stanley-Boyd volleyball teams met at Altoona’s home invitational, they faced each other again, this time for the overall Cloverbelt Conference championship.

On Saturday, October 6, the Western Cloverbelt champion Railroaders defeated Stanley-Boyd, 25-22, 22-25, 17-15. However, it was the defending WIAA Division 3 state champion Orioles winning Thursday’s conference title match, 25-20, 25-21, 25-13.

Gwen Frederiksen was 11-for-11 with three aces in service and Brittany Gregorich went 13-for-13 with an ace from the service line and added 20 digs, but the Railroaders were unable to contain the Oriole attack led by Division 1 prospect Holly Mertens.

After trailing early in the first game, Altoona took seven consecutive points to take an 18-12 lead. But after the teams exchanged points on the next two serves, the Orioles rattled off 10 in a row to take control, 23-19, and held on for a 25-20 game victory.

“I really believe that had we won that game, it would have been a different story,” said Altoona coach Ron “Duff” Martin.

“Had we been able to garner another point when we had that pretty significant lead… we just couldn’t do it. We could not get the side-out we needed. And you just saw the confidence level of our girls really drown.”

Despite the loss, the Railroaders got off to a strong start in game 2, leading by four points on two separate occasions before Stanley-Boyd came back to finally take the lead for good at 18-17 en route to their 25-21 win. From there, the Orioles cruised to an easy 25-13 win in the final game.

“I told the girls going into the third game, you look like you’ve lost this game before you’ve even played it,” said Martin.

“You can’t go in before the game even starts defeated, because you won’t win.

Just little things that add up that we’ve been able to do really well… we were not executing and not doing well,” he added. “The girls just couldn’t get it to click or connect, and Stanley-Boyd took advantage of that. They just did a really nice job against us.”

But Martin said the Railroaders could take some positives from the loss heading into their playoff opener against Northland Pines on Tuesday.

“A loss before the WIAA tournament is sometimes a good eye-opener, a good wake-up call,” he said. “We’ve got to start playing our A-game again. We can go back and talk about, what were the things that went wrong, and how do we fix it?”

If there was one word to describe the Altoona volleyball team’s trio of senior starters, it might be “chemistry”.

On the volleyball court, the basketball court, the softball diamond, or away from sports entirely, it’s hard to find Tiffany Gregorich, Aimee Reyzer, and Ashley Robinson separated for long. Gregorich and Reyzer are starters on the Altoona basketball and softball teams as well, while Robinson also is a starter on the softball team.

“This team as a whole, we’re like a big family,” said Reyzer. “We’re comfortable with each other, and I guess we trust each other more so than some teams that just play one sport together. We hang out outside of school at friends’ houses and stuff like that. It’s not just about sports, it’s like a big camaraderie with all of us.”

Those three, along with fellow seniors Heather Olson and Krista Hines, have been playing volleyball together since middle school, and this year it has paid off with the program’s first Western Cloverbelt Conference title since 1993.

“People come up to us at tournaments and say, ‘It looks like you and the other players have been playing with each other for forever’, and it’s like ‘Well, yeah, the five seniors have played since seventh grade together,’” said Gregorich, adding that the seniors have been playing with the junior class for three years now, as well.

That chemistry was put to the test this year after Gregorich tore her ACL in an AAU basketball game in April, forcing her to miss the end of the softball season and the beginning of volleyball. In both sports, Robinson switched positions to fill Gregorich’s place in the lineup, moving to shortstop on the softball team and to setter on the volleyball team.

“I hadn’t set since middle school, so at first I was really scared,” Robinson admitted. “But (Bethany Reyzer) and I just worked on it a lot. It was a hard role because Tiffany is a four-year starter, so it’s hard to fill in, but I think the whole team was pretty good about helping.”

“Some players just had to step up and take the role they were faced with,” said Aimee Reyzer. “Robbi and Bethany really stepped up being setters when Tiffany was out, and they did a tremendous job with that. Then when Tiffany came back, they went back to the roles that (coach Ron “Duff” Martin) wanted them to play and they didn’t get upset about it; they just did what the coach asked them to do.”

When Gregorich did return, she was able to use the time off to her advantage, having learned from the opportunity to watch the game from a different point of view.

“I saw stuff in perspectives that no one else sees, because I sit there on the bench, and everyone else was playing so they couldn’t see the little things that I (saw),” said Gregorich. “It’s kind of beneficial now when I get in the game I can look in the corner of my eye and see a block or something. I can see that stuff now that I couldn’t before. So I think it made me better. Even though it was (difficult), it was beneficial at the same time as well.”

Despite the transition in the lineup, the Railroaders never lost a game in conference play after losing their opener 3-2. They clinched the conference title with a 3-0 victory at Osseo-Fairchild on Thursday, October 4.

“We’ve worked really hard since our freshman year,” said Robinson. “We’ve been pushing and doing extra every summer, so it felt really awesome when we won, especially since it was a good game against Osseo.

Now, with a conference title under their belts, the seniors are making it clear that they are not satisfied yet.

“We need to keep practicing hard and obviously our goal is to get as far as we can,” said Robinson. “We’re just going to take it one game at a time, but I think as long as we keep working hard and keep putting all of our effort in, we can go far.”