ing to get to PKs,” ….

ing to get to PKs,” Tlusty said.

Rhinelander’s goal came 18:22 into the first half. A communication breakdown between Dassow and defender Brayden Machon resulted in Dassow coming out of his box and Shinners basically getting an open net to shoot at from 20 yards.

That wound up being the only goal of the first half.

“We weren’t happy going down one in the beginning, but we didn’t drop our heads at all,” Blair said. “We knew we were going to come back. We weren’t losing this game.”

Medford’s play was noticeably sharper to start the second half and it didn’t take long for the Raiders to even the score. At 44:31, Neubauer sent a long pass along the right sidelines to Tlusty, who beat defender Matthew King to it and drew a penalty in the box. Tlusty went low left corner to tie it.

“That was a great ball to me,” Tlusty said. “I was just a little faster than the guy. I got the ball out in front of me and he just kind of hit me in the back and I just fell.”

“I knew when I played it, I was like Q’s either going to score on this or we’re going to have a PK,” Neubauer said. “I was like, it’s one or the other. This is going to end up good either way.

“We got our goal and I think we really just put the foot on the gas in the last 20 minutes that we had there,” Neubauer added. “We knew that even if we had to go into PKs, we’d win.”

Medford won last year’s sectional final shootout with Rice Lake 6-5 in nine rounds and lost a regional final shootout with Fox Valley Lutheran, also on Raider Field’s west end, in 2019.