GNC second half starts with 2-0 revenge win over Hodags
SPORTS The Medford Raiders pounced on two opportunities that suddenly presented themselves –– one in each half –– and started the second half of Great Northern Conference play with a solid 2-0 win at Rhinelander Thursday night.
The win got Medford back to even in the GNC at 3-3 and put them back over the .500 mark overall at 5-4-1 as the Raiders, much like a year ago, seem to be building some momentum after a rough early-season stretch.
“Every game is up to whoever wants to win it the most,” Medford head coach Nate Bilodeau said. “The level of play in the GNC for soccer, which I said in the beginning of the season, is going to be tight. Everyone is going to be so good. It’s coming down to who wants to win it more. In this game, we wanted to win it more and that showed.”
Junior co-captain Zach Rudolph got both goals at the end of well-executed pushes into the offensive end and senior Quinton Tlusty got credit for his firstever shutout in goal in his second appearance there while filling in for Jake Dassow, who is expected back this week.
Rudolph’s first goal came 33:59 into the first half. Silas Wipf intercepted a pass at midfield and passed it up to Rudolph, who beat a Hodag to the ball and slipped it past Rhinelander’s All-GNC goalie Gavin Ostermann.
“Zach made a really good run up top, and Silas sent a perfect through ball to him,” Bilodeau said. “He had one defender to beat. He got the ball and flipped it past Gavin.”
Bilodeau said the intensity on the field picked up noticeably after halftime and it was huge for Medford to double its lead just 8:35 into the second 40-minute half.
“One goal is not a big enough lead especially against a team like Rhinelander,” he said. “We came out swinging and it got a lot more physical, a lot more competitive in the second half. They were down a goal so they were fighting really hard and we’re fighting really hard to keep that lead. That last 40 minutes was really hard fought. It was a really good game. We capitalized on our scoring opportunities and made the most of it.”
The play that got the goal started with Caden Tessmann gaining control of the ball on the defensive end and pushing it up to Kale Klussendorf. He tapped it to Rudolph, who one-touched it Gage Neubauer, who won a race to the ball with Rhinelander’s Kyle Wiese.
Ostermann made an impressive play, quickly rushing out and meeting Neubauer head-on with a sliding save, but the ball bounced right to Rudolph, who reacted quickly and punched a hard, leftfooted shot on net.
The defense held from there, but not without a few scares. Tlusty made a couple of nice saves down the stretch, a couple of shots went wide and the Raiders caught a break with 19:15 left when Matthew King sent a perfect left-to-right pass to Beau Howard for an open shot from the post, but the ball hit Howard’s knee and carried over the crossbar.
“That was a mental breakdown there where we didn’t track our runs and we left that guy wide open back post,” Bilodeau said. “Nine times out of 10 I think he scores there. That was a breakdown on our part. In tight games like that one goal makes all the difference.
“But we got the shutout,” he added. “Clean sheets are what we strive for. It feels good to win those tough matchups, especially when we lose games early in the season to simple mental errors.”
Now brimming with renewed confi dence, Medford’s timing couldn’t be better for a rematch with undefeated Lakeland tonight, Thursday, at 7 p.m. in Minocqua. The T-Birds beat Medford 2-0 on Sept. 2 and are a perfect 6-0 in the GNC and 12-0-2 overall. They have outscored GNC foes 22-0.
On Tuesday, Medford heads to Mosinee for a rematch with the Indians, who beat them 3-0 on Sept. 9.
“We’re turning it around. We’re getting it figured out,” Bilodeau said. “We’ve got two tough games coming up against Lakeland and Mosinee. We’ll try to take them one at a time. It feels like we’ve jelled a lot better than the last few weeks. We’ve put the early half of the season behind us and are looking forward to the second half.”
