Raiders overwhelmed in season-ending loss to Rice Lake

WIAA DIV. 3 FOOTBALL

The Medford Raiders and Rice Lake Warriors weren’t necessarily entering Friday’s WIAA Division 3 Level 1 playoff game going in opposite directions, but one team’s trajectory was definitely pointing higher and it showed in Rice Lake’s 48-14 thumping of the Raiders at Pug Lund Field.

The Warriors, who improved to 8-2, continued to look like a team that is absolutely peaking at the right time of the season and will be a handful for any team they face from here on out.

The banged-up Raiders finished with a strong second-half effort that produced two touchdowns against Rice Lake’s reserves, but they also left knowing, quite simply, the better team won.

“They are really good and they’ve gotten a lot better since the beginning of the year,” Medford head coach Ted Wilson said. “I think we’ve gotten better also, but we also were down three kids, including two offensive linemen that played a pretty big role in our inability to run the ball. Health is a big key factor in these types of things. They’re extremely healthy. I don’t think they have a single kid that started during the year that was not there and we were down a bunch.”

The first half can mostly be explained by noting the first snap in Rice Lake territory did not take place until the 6:45 mark of the second quarter. The Warriors continually pinned Medford deep in its own territory with strong kickoffs, allowed just one first down defensively in the first 17 minutes and turned that field position into 40 quick points.

Rice Lake’s first drive covered 49 yards after a 28-yard Medford punt and lasted six plays. The Warriors overcame a holding penalty, got two 12-yard runs by fullback Christian Lindow and scored on a 25-yard pass from Cole Fenske to Teagan Scheurer, who got too much room to work with on an out pattern to the right side.

Rice Lake’s second drive was 46 yards long and ended with a 3-yard touchdown run by Lindow, who had 29 yards on four carries during the drive, which made it 16-0 with 3:05 left in the opening quarter.

The next kickoff bounced through the

SPORTS EDITOR fingers of Aiden Gardner and bounced out of bounds at the one. After a short punt, the Warriors only had to go 20 yards for their third touchdown. They overcame a Peyton Gilles sack of Fenske to score on Lindow’s 4-yard run that made it 24-0 two plays into the second quarter.

“The way they run their offense, you have to stop them from running the ball. You have to stop their fullback. Option teams start with the fullback. If you let them run that fullback for a bunch of yards, they’re going to run it right down your throat. We struggled a little bit with that. When we did get a couple of stops there they were able to throw it to Alex Belongia, who’s really good.”

Belongia had his fourth straight impact outing against Medford in two years, doing his damage in the second quarter. He caught touchdown passes of 27 and 32 yards from Fenske to push the lead to 40-0 before a 23-yard run by Gardner finally got Medford into Rice Lake territory near the midpoint of the second quarter.

Unfortunately, that drive ended when pressure by Rice Lake’s defense forced Medford quarterback Ty Metz into an errant throw behind the line of scrimmage that was intercepted by Carson Tomesh and run back 65 yards for yet another touchdown.

With a running clock and Rice Lake’s reserves on the field for the entire second half, Medford got a 42-yard run by Gardner that set up his 1-yard touchdown run with 55 seconds left in the third quarter and nice 35-yard touchdown run by Gardner where he bounced out to left side and sprinted down the left sideline with 2:15 left in the game.

“They never gave up. They kept playing which is good,” Wilson said. “I think our kids aren’t ones that just pack it in. It’s tough when you get the running clock, but at least we got a little bit going. Aiden had a couple of nice runs late. For a last game, the kids didn’t hang their heads and didn’t go too far into the rabbit hole, if you will.”

Medford finished with 126 rushing yards on 25 attempts with Gardner getting 91 of them on 16 attempts. Metz was six of 16 in passing for 46 yards. Caleb Guden caught two passes for 26 yards.

Lindow ran for 84 yards on 10 first-half attempts for Rice Lake, while Landon Hoff had 37 yards on 10 second-half carries. The Warriors ran for just 159 yards, a figure that doesn’t tell how tough to stop they were because they operated with such short fields in the first half.

All three of Fenske’s passes went for touchdowns and a total of 84 yards.

The loss marked the end of the line for Medford’s eight seniors, who leave after being part of two Great Northern Conference championships and a Level 3 playoff run as sophomores.

The Raiders (5-5) hope the silver lining to the injuries that plagued them this year as well as having many young players fill key roles is that those players will put that experience to good use in 2022 when Medford opens with tough non-conference games against New Richmond and Amherst. After that, the Raiders hope to be back as a GNC title contender.

“While we didn’t have the post-season success that we would’ve like to have had, we still were very competitive in our conference,” Wilson said. “As a whole, we had lots of young kids, lots of kids who didn’t have varsity experience, but I thought the kids grew well. Hopefully they’re willing to see what it takes in the off-season to take those next steps and do what it takes to get back to the top.”

MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS Medford running back Aiden Gardner uses blocks from Cameron Bull (l.) and Parker Crass to bounce outside and score a 35-yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter of Friday’s 48-14 loss at Rice Lake. Gardner finished the year with 1,631 rushing yards and 17 touchdowns.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS