Volleyball: Shawano, Bonduel team up to take on cancer

SHAWANO — The Shawano and Bonduel high school volleyball teams played their annual pink-out fundraiser game for cancer Monday, with the hosting Hawks coming away with a 25-17, 25-9, 25-15 victory.

While many schools play in pink games, Monday’s match was a more meaningful one with Shawano junior Abby Tuma battling medulloblastoma, a form of brain cancer.

Tuma was announced as a starter before being replaced before the first serve.

“Honestly, it means so much,” said Tuma on the pink-out game. “Having family, friends and this whole team and its amazing coaches supporting me is amazing.”

Tuma played for the Hawks prior to her Jan. 17 diagnosis. Despite undergoing brain surgery, radiation treatment and chemotherapy, Tuma still serves a big role for Shawano.

“Our girls have gone above and beyond for her (Tuma) this year, and she’s done the same for us,” said Shawano coach Breanna Young. “She’s helped us on the sidelines during matches, during practices. She’s at nearly everything; it’s amazing.”

Fans had the chance to win raffle baskets and enter a 50/50 raffle during the evening. In between the second and third sets, fans from Shawano and Bonduel faced each other in another fundraising effort, racing to fill up buckets with the most money in one minute.

The minute challenge alone raised over $725. On the night, more than $2,000 was raised to fight cancer.

“Ultimately, life is a lot bigger than the game of volleyball and I think being able to show her (Tuma) she has support — not just from Shawano, but from Bonduel — is the least we can do. We wish her the best,” said Bonduel coach Abby Reinke.

“I think it really shows us just how strong a person she actually is,” said Shawano senior Abi Vomastic. “We’re realizing how much she means to our team, and I’m really glad that we could do this for her to show her how much we appreciate her coming out for everything.”

Despite the match being one between cross-town rivals, many laughs, hugs and smiles were shared between the teams before, during and after the match.

“I definitely think it’s great that we can put aside our differences and just come together to raise money for awareness for cancer,” said Bonduel junior Halea Sporisky.

On the court

Coming off a tough weekend tournament, Shawano played one of its better matches of the season.

The Hawks had early trouble with their serving. But once they got on track, they were hard to stop.

Tied at 12 in the first set, the Hawks got a kill from junior Rachel Reed that sparked a 4-0 run. After Bonduel closed to within two after a timeout, Shawano won nine of the next 12 points to take the set.

Reed had a trio of kills down the stretch and finished the match with 10 total kills.

The Hawks kept things rolling in the second set, using a stretch of strong serves from Vomastic to take control. The senior also had 10 total kills, while adding five digs.

Senior Katelyn Wilber tallied a handful of kills in the set and finished the night with seven total kills, 13 assists, seven digs and three aces. Sophomore Margo Gull served all three of her aces to help the Hawks end the second set on a 7-0 run and also totaled five digs and four assists.

The third set saw the teams split the first 12 points before the Hawks pulled away.

Freshman Alixandrya Heath contributed 10 assists in the Hawks’ win, while senior Baylie Hansen had five total kills.

“It was good to see them come back” from the tournament over the weekend, coach Young said. “They never gave up, and they were aggressive. They were swinging; they were blocking and were more consistent, which is nice to see and gives us good things to build on.”

“Tonight, we really worked on hitting everything,” said Vomastic. “We had a lot of strong hits and didn’t really tip a lot.”

Bonduel had trouble getting in a good rhythm, and when it looked like they might, some unforced errors hurt the team.

Sophomore Allaina Robaidek finished with seven assists, three digs and two kills for the Bears, while sophomore Brenna Hertzfeldt had seven digs and two kills.

Senior Mandi McClone tallied three digs and three total kills, while Sporisky and sophomore Nicole Koeller chipped in two kills each.

“I think we’ve got to learn to fight a little more throughout the game,” said Reinke. “I saw moments of it, but it’s got to stretch over a longer period of time. We started to bounce back toward the end of that third set, but it was just too late. Just getting off to a better start in every single set is going to be big for us. But we are young, so we’re still learning it.”

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