Raiders look tournament-ready in Senior Night rout of Hurley
MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL
A regular season that most would agree went better for the Medford Raiders than predicted ended Thursday with another solid win, a 78-52 Senior Night victory over Hurley at Raider Hall.
The Northstars, who came in 18-3 and ranked sixth or seventh in Division 5 depending on which state poll you subscribe to, came in confident and shot well in the first half, but their attempts to ruin the Senior Night celebration came to a crashing halt when Medford got everything clicking in the second half and outscored them 43-20.
The Raiders finished the regular season 18-6 against what looked at the start of the year to be one of the toughest schedules they had ever assembled. And, as the 10-1 run they’re on to start WIAA Division 2 tournament play would suggest, they appear to have come out the back end energized rather than worn out by playing quality opponents night in and night out.
“You always look at it at the start of the season and wonder what could we be?” head coach Ryan Brown said. “We could be 10-14, we could be 14-10. Where are we going to be at? To go 18-6 I think says a lot about this group because the schedule we played was brutal and I thought the GNC was really tough this year. Even more so than our record, it’s been fun just to see how we’ve grown. We went 3-3 in the GNC through the first round and then went 6-0 and beat all the teams we lost to the first time in the second round. We just want to continue to believe in what we do.”
The Raiders used the non-conference opportunity to get all seven varsity seniors some quality minutes and all of them found the scoring column in the win from Joe Sullivan’s 18 points to Nick Buchan’s free throw and Steve Hraby’s top-of-the-key 3 in the last two minutes. Sam Blair had a big night, snapping out of a recent quiet stretch with nine points on three-of-three shooting from 3-point range. Two of those came in the first half as Medford dug out of an early 15-6 hole.
“What comes to mind about this group is how coachable they are,” Brown said of the seniors. “They have a great attitude every day they’re in the gym. They’re really easy to get along with. They like to joke around and have fun, but they practice really hard. They’ve just stood the course. We lost a lot of seniors last year and they just believed in what we do and they put in the work every day and I just feel like they’ve gotten better week by week all season long. The great thing about them is all they want to do is what’s best for the team and win.”
Sullivan and Charlie Kleist sparked Medford’s surge that wiped out Hurley’s early lead. Sullivan had back-to-back assists to Kleist and then Sullivan put back his own miss to tie it at 16-16. Sullivan hit a free then scored off a steal to pull the Raiders within 20-19, before Tanner Hra- by’s putback gave the Raiders their first lead at 21-20.
Blair’s back-to-back 3s broke a 26-26 tie and put the Raiders up by six. They eventually settled for a 35-32 halftime lead.
“Sam knows his role when he comes in is to play defense and look for an open shot,” Brown said. “He’s been shooting great in practice, so to see him go out there and shoot with confidence and knock some shots down was big tonight. We got behind early and that kind of helped us get back to a small lead before half and we were able to take control from there.
“We’re excited about Charlie’s play,” he added. “We know what his potential is and he’s really starting to figure out what he can be. If he puts in a lot of hard work, he’s really going to push the rest of our team in the future. We’re going to need those rebounds, his presence inside. He plays bigger than he is.”
Logan Baumgartner sank back-toback 3s to open up a 43-34 lead early in the second half and the margin gradually expanded from there as the Raiders hit the Northstars with drives to the rack, transition chances, second-chance points and the occasional 3. Despite a slow start, Medford wound up shooting 50% from the field (30 of 60).
“Sometimes with Senior Night it’s a little different coming off the bench for some of our guys,” Brown said. “I don’t think we shot it quite as well as we have but we made up for it other ways with our defensive intensity and our pressure and pushing the ball a little bit in the second half.” Baumgartner had 21 points, six rebounds, three assists and three blocked shots for Medford. Sullivan had nine assists and five boards. Tanner Hraby finished with nine points, three rebounds and two assists. Blair added four rebounds. Zach Rudolph gave Medford a first-half lift with five points. Kleist finished with four points and two assists.
As for the seniors, Chubs Guden had four points, four rebounds and was the main defender in the second half on Hurley’s Eli Talsma, who got 16 of his 24 points before halftime. Quinton Tlusty scored on a quick burst through the lane early in the game and had two assists. Brigham Kelley had a second-half tip-in and had two boards and a steal. Steve Hraby had two rebounds to go with his trifecta. Buchan had a point and a rebound.
The WIAA tournament starts Friday for the fourth-seeded Raiders, who will get fifth-seeded New London (9-14, 4-10 Bay Conference) at Raider Hall at 7 p.m. The winner will go to top-seeded Fox Valley Lutheran (20-4) Saturday night for the regional final, unless ninth-seeded Wausau East (6-19) can pull off an upset Friday.
In the playoffs you need to play well and you need to get lucky,” Brown said. “We know the New London team we’re playing is a good team. If somehow we’re lucky enough to get through that, Fox Valley is going to be really tough. We’re just going to go out and give everything we have and leave it all out on the floor and hopefully that results in some wins and getting to play one more week.”
