REGIONAL CHAMPIONS

WIAA DIV. 2 BOYS BASKETBALL REGIONAL FINAL

Third win over Hodags clinches sectional spot

For the second straight night Saturday, the Medford Raiders watched their opponent drill 3-pointer after 3-pointer to keep the pressure on in a win-or-gohome situation.

But also for the second straight night, the Raiders remained poised and always responded whenever things got tight and because of that, they earned the WIAA Division 2 boys basketball regional championship plaque with a 64-54 win over the rival Rhinelander Hodags.

While the Hodags hit nine of 21 3-point shots –– 24 hours after Merrill was nine for 22 –– the Raiders countered with an unstoppable inside game and hit six timely 3s of their own. Although both games were close and Medford had to work around the injury status of their two-time Great Northern Conference Player of the Year Peyton Kuhn, the 24-2 Raiders never trailed in the two games played at Raider Hall and confirmed their status as the regional’s unquestioned top seed.

“It feels great,” senior forward Brady Hupf said after dumping in a career- high 21 points in Saturday’s win. “I love beating Rhinelander. That’s the best thing. It was only a four-point game the last time we played them. We beat them by 40 the first time, and beat them by four the second time, so we didn’t know what was going to happen. We came out and, I think, played our best game and got out of here with a 10-point win.”

“It feels pretty good,” Kuhn said after somehow contributing 14 points in 31 minutes after being able to put hardly any weight on his sprained right ankle the day before and being in crutches two days earlier. “We accomplished something we knew we could. At the same time, we’re not done. We’re ready to keep going.”

“We’re proud of our team,” senior guard Owen Wipf said. “It is an accomplishment. We expected it, but we’re also proud.”

The Raiders aim to take the next step toward the school’s first-ever state appearance in boys basketball tonight, Thursday, when they host Rice Lake in a WIAA Division 2 sectional semifinal at 7 p.m. The Raiders drew the sectional’s second seed, while third-seeded Rice Lake comes in at 9-12.

The winner will likely face topseeded Onalaska (16-0), who is also the top-ranked Division 2 team in the state, in Saturday’s sectional final. Unless, that is, fourth-seeded Altoona (16-7), coached by Medford native Paul Henrichs, can pull off the upset in tonight’s other semifinal.

In beating Rhinelander, Medford successfully used a patient offensive approach while building a 29-18 halftime lead. On many of those long possessions, the ball ended up on the block in Hupf’s hands. He scored 13 of his points in the half and Medford scored 16 of its first-half points in the paint. For the game, Medford was an impressive 17 of 20 on shots in the paint.

“Brady was just a beast,” Medford head coach Ryan Brown said. “We wanted to get it into him a lot (Friday) night. We felt like he got great position and made some good moves, he just didn’t always finish. This senior class will literally take anything for motivation. Like wanting to be the best class that I’ve coached and wanting to be two-time champions in the conference. They jump on that stuff. So I told Brady that he got worked by (Rhinelander forward Travis) Towne last time and he needed to step up his game. He told me in pre-game he was going to take it to him all night, and he did. He did a great job. He was huge inside.” “We kinda emphasized it in practice this last week,” Hupf said of the Raiders’ inside attack. “We didn’t know if Peyton was going to be back or not, so coach said he wanted me to take a lot of post shots. We got it done tonight and I was finding the back of the net. It worked good.”

Speaking of Kuhn, he did start the game after not playing at all against Merrill and hit two 3-point shots in the opening half. Joe Sullivan added a 3-pointer in the half and, as he’s done on several occasions this season, he got to the rim and got a big score just before the buzzer.

“We said he’s going to be warm from warm-ups, let’s see what he can do,” Brown said of the decision to start Kuhn. “We told the guys in the locker room don’t expect a lot. They expected to beat Merrill without him. We said if Peyton gives us anything, it’s like frosting on top of the cake. You need to have the mindset that it’s going to be us doing it without Peyton because we have no idea what he’s going to be able to give us. But obviously he made that first 3, and he moved pretty well. It was not as well as what he can. He couldn’t really attack much. I think that first 3 got our team going, knowing he was going to be there. I think it gave him confidence. Man that was a courageous effort.”

“Any of these guys can come out there and fill their roles,” Kuhn said. “We have a lot of guys on our team that are strong. With any of us mixed together we know we’ll play well.”

“We knew we were going to miss Peyton, but we have players besides him who can play without him,” senior Nate Retterath said. “We just did our best and we pulled through. He’ll be back next week full strength and we’ll be even better.”

Kuhn admitted when he turned the ankle in practice last week that he feared his season was over.

“When I first got injured, I couldn’t really walk,” he said. “I was actually really nervous that I wouldn’t play the rest of the year. I’ve been icing it, really working on it to get better. (Friday) I started to walk in the morning. I came out for warm-ups. I didn’t get to play, but I know my team’s good enough to win without me. I’m glad they stepped up big. Today, it just got better and better. I’m praying to God that it keeps getting better and that will get me to be where I need to be for these next couple games.”

The Raiders made sure their season would continue by making shots when they needed them in the second half.

Hodag Ross Skeen hit back-to-back 3s to pull his team within 31-24, but Logan Baumgartner scored off a Kuhn assist and then got a steal and score of his own to push the lead back to 11. When a 6-1 spurt pulled the Hodags within 36-32, Baumgartner calmly sank a right-wing 3-pointer that was answered by a Quinn Lamers triple. Baumgartner and Hupf came right back by scoring in the paint to extend the lead back to eight at 43-35.

A Towne trey made it 48-42 with just over six minutes left. But the ball went back inside to Hupf, and he again came through with a three-point play at the 5:27 mark. The Raiders forced a turnover and Ty Baker made a nice move along the left baseline to get to the rim and make it 53-42. He scored again inside to answer a Jacksen Smith 3-pointer to keep the lead in double digits at 55-45 heading into the final three minutes.

“The old saying goes it’s hard to beat a team three times in a row,” Baker said after his eight-point, six-rebound outing. “We knew that if we do what we do, we’d be just fine.”

“We responded, whether it was Brady inside or Peyton hitting a shot,” Brown said. “Logan hit a huge 3 when they cut