TAKING TWO FROM THE BRC

MEDFORD GIRLS BASKETBALL

Raiders get good road wins at Chi-Hi, Rice Lake

SPORTS EDITOR

The Medford Raiders aren’t where they want to be yet, but the fact they’ve won four of their last five basketball games while working out the kinks is something they view as a positive sign heading into the 2021 portion of their schedule.

The Raiders picked up two significant wins in the past week, going into Big Rivers Conference territory and knocking off Rice Lake and Chippewa Falls in non-conference play and sat at 4-2 overall before traveling to Northland Pines Wednesday in a rescheduled Great Northern Conference contest.

Medford led from start to finish in Monday’s 44-33 win at Chi-Hi, taking advantage of an inexperienced Cardinals squad by forcing 16 turnovers, outrebounding them 37-29 and basically never letting them get into an offensive groove.

That followed a 51-49 win at Rice Lake on Dec. 22 where Medford rallied from a seven-point second-half deficit.

“It’s really exciting,” senior Marissa Fronk said after Monday’s win. “I’m really happy for all of us because in the beginning of the year we were playing and we were obviously all nervous because everything was new. Now getting into the season, it’s just super exciting that we’re doing so well against these teams.”

“It was a big win,” first-year head coach Greg Klapatauskas said. “We played really well. I love the effort level, we boxed out well. I don’t know what the rebounding totals were, but I thought we rebounded well and did more of the little things right that we need to keep doing.”

Turnovers were a big deal in this one as Medford held theirs down to a reasonable 16. Meanwhile, the Raiders’ combination of full-court pressure, which they’ve just started using in the last couple of games and its 2-3 zone in halfcourt situations flustered the 0-4 Cardinals.

After starting the year as a straight man-to-man team defensively, the zone has worked well the past couple of weeks.

“It is working for us pretty well,” Fronk said. “It depends on the team. We’re good at both, but we just kind of read teams and how well they play against our man and zone. Overall we’re pretty good at adjusting and covering our space.”

Klapatauskas said the zone was simply something to try and it’s been working.

“We went to it and we’re stopping teams from scoring,” he said. “We kinda have the right mix of enough bigs down low to block shots and we’ve got some good guards up on top that are able to harass.”

The Raiders broke free from a sluggish 5-4 start by taking advantage of the Cardinals’ miscues and getting some key offensive rebounds to extend their lead to 17-7 and, later, 23-13 on a Bryn Fronk steal and score and 25-13 on a Marissa Fronk score. They settled for a 25-15 halftime lead, then opened the second half with a Bryn Fronk putback Raiders win at Chi-Hi, Rice Lake

and an Autumn Krause 3-pointer off a Laurissa Klapatauskas kick out that made it 30-15.

From there, the Raiders held the Cardinals at arm’s length and answered every small run they made. When the lead shrunk to 34-26, Krause grabbed an offensive rebound and scored and Klapatauskas got free on the left block and scored off a Martha Miller assist to make it 38-26. When Chippewa Falls got within 40-33 in the last two minutes after forcing a couple of turnovers, Marissa Fronk slammed the door, driving past a couple of defenders for the clinching layup with 1:12 to go.

“I like the way we took care of the ball at the end of the game,” Greg Klapatauskas said. “We had a couple turnovers here and there when it got a little physical, but for the most part we didn’t lose our heads, we didn’t let them back in the game because we made good decisions.”

Marissa Fronk led a balanced attack with 10 points, Bryn Fronk scored nine and Krause scored seven of her eight points in the second half. Katie Brehm scored seven points, Klapatauskas and Miller scored four each and Rynn Ruesch added a hoop.

Ruesch led the Raiders in rebounds with seven, while Brehm had six and Krause grabbed five. Miller and Klapatauskas both had three assists. Miller had three steals.

Sophomore Brooklyn Sandvig led Chippewa Falls with eight points.

Medford is still hoping its shooting percentage improves. The Raiders made 18 of 54 shots from the field overall (33.3%), including 14 of 35 two-point shots (40%) and four of 19 3-pointers (21.1%).

“The thing I liked most was we unoffi cially had four turnovers in the first half and I was told five in the second half,” Greg Klapatauskas said. “For us, that’s a huge improvement. We need to keep doing that. We need to work on finishing a little bit. We took a lot of good shots that just didn’t go in, but they were good shots. They were shots I was happy with.”

“It’s coming along,” Marissa Fronk said of the offense. “Obviously we still have a lot of work to do on that. Some of us aren’t sure, some of us don’t know when to pass it. We’re still working on it. It’s a lot more complex for us. We’ve all grown up running our five-out offense and we were all running it fast. Now we go to our swing or whatever and we have to think about it. It’s coming.”

Medford will see Northland Pines again on Tuesday in a 7:15 p.m. start at Raider Hall. The Raiders then get a rematch with GNC-leading Mosinee on Jan. 8. The Indians won in Medford 64-52 on Dec. 21.

Medford 51, Rice Lake 49

Despite Brehm and Marissa Fronk both fouling out in an 11-second span, the Raiders were poised enough down the stretch to cap a comeback from a sevenpoint deficit and edge host Rice Lake 51-49 in a non-conference thriller.

Miller hit the game-winning shot, a 10-foot jumper from the right baseline, with 31 seconds left, breaking a 48-48 tie. The shot was made possible by Laurissa Klapatauskas fighting to grab an offensive rebound. While falling down, she flipped the ball to Miller who calmly sank the shot.

Rice Lake’s Jordan Pagac made one of two free throws with 13.6 seconds left to make it 50-49. The teams then traded turnovers near midcourt, resulting in Miller getting fouled with 1.2 seconds left. She made the first free throw and missed the second. The Warriors were unable to get off a last-second heave and the Raiders escaped with their third win of the year.

Rice Lake fell to 4-3 overall.

“We played a much better second half,” Greg Klapatauskas said. “Sixteen turnovers in the first half, then I think we had five or six in the second half. That was a difference maker. We never quit. We were down and the girls kept working. We got in some foul trouble. Marissa and Katie fouled out, but whoever was left just kept working. They did a good job with it.”

The game was close throughout. The first half featured six lead changes with no margin being greater than four. Rice Lake led 16-12 after an 8-0 run. After a long dry spell offensively for both teams, a Miller free throw and a Krause score off a nice cut and an assist from Klapatauskas made it 16-15. Krause returned the favor, assisting Klapatauskas on a transition basket pulling Medford within 18-17 and Krause assisted on Bryn Fronk’s baseline score, again getting the Raiders within one at 20-19. Marissa Fronk drove through the Warrior defense to give the Raiders a 21-20 lead, but Faith Forsberg’s score off a press break gave the Warriors a 22-21 halftime lead.

Medford turned the ball over 16 times in the half and made just one of seven free throws.

Brehm scored to start the second half, but that was Medford’s only lead for the first 15:30 of the half as Rice Lake’s Brynn Olson answered with a pair of 3-pointers that sandwiched a Rynn Ruesch basket. Marissa Fronk was fouled on a 3-point attempt and made all three free throws to tie it at 30-30, then the Warriors went on a 7-0 run on a three-point play by Callie Karstens, a Grace Forsberg score off a turnover and an offensive putback by Eli Sheplee.

Medford chipped away and pulled within 43-42 on a Krause 3-pointer just before Brehm and Fronk fouled out with 4:45 and 4:34 to go. Rice Lake made just one of three free throws off those fouls and Miller hit two bonus throws to tie it with 3:21 left. Forsberg’s bonus throws put Rice Lake up by two with 3:01 left.

Ruesch’s spin move in the post tied it at 46-46. Klapatauskas made a tough shot in the lane and was fouled with 2:00 left. She missed the free throw. Rice Lake’s Jordan Roethel made two free throws to tie 13 seconds later. The teams then traded turnovers, setting up Miller’s gamewinner.

Marissa Fronk scored 14 points on fiveof- 12 shooting before exiting. She added four rebounds and two assists. Miller, Krause and Klapatauskas scored eight points apiece. Klapatauskas grabbed eight rebounds and had two assists and two steals. Krause had five boards, two steals and two blocked shots. Miller had three steals.

Bryn Fronk chipped in with seven points, seven rebounds, three steals and an assist. Rynn scored four points and had three rebounds, two steals and an assist. Brehm had a bucket and three rebounds.

Olson led all scorers with 19 points.

Medford shot 40.4% from the field (19 of 47), while Rice Lake shot just 28.8% (17 of 59). Medford had a slight 38-37 rebounding edge and overcame 29 turnovers. Rice Lake had 22 miscues.

“We grew up a lot that night,” coach Klapatauskas said. “I think it showed a little bit here with being aggressive, taking the ball to the basket. I like the way we’re doing that. We did that against Rice Lake, we did that again (at Chippewa Falls). We weren’t timid going to the basket.”

Raider forward Katie Brehm tries to power past Chippewa Falls defender Shannon Lindner while working along the baseline during the second half of Monday’s 44-33 win over the Cardinals.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS

Medford’s Rynn Ruesch puts a shot up over Rice Lake’s Grace Forsberg during last week’s 51-49 non-conference win over the Warriors.TRAVIS NYHUS/RICE LAKE CHRONOTYPEContinued from page 28