MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER PREVIEW - Soccer team has experience; infusion of young talent will help

MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER PREVIEW

It can be said the 2023 season was one of transition for Medford’s boys soccer team, which broke in a new head coach in Adam Derr and, for the most part, moved on from many of the players responsible for the 2022 Great Northern Conference title and 2020 WIAA state berth.

As the 2024 fall season arrives, there is more of comfort level between Derr and the players, there is an experienced core to build the team around and a big freshman class has joined the program, giving the Raiders a little more depth to work with than they had last year and lot of hope for the future.

“I’m ecstatic with the amount of guys that came out,” Derr said Friday as the first official week of practices concluded. “We have three or four more guys than we did last year and that really helps with developing the program. There’s a lot of kids who are very talented in that freshman group and it’s exciting to think that all of them could potentially get some varsity time to be honest.

“We have six seniors,” Derr added. “We have six juniors and two sophomores. We’re about half freshmen at this point. I think the exciting thing is that of those 12-13 guys we have returning, about 12 of them had some varsity experience last year. It does feel young, but we’re returning more varsity experience than we did last year, so I think that’s a positive.”

“The first day started off kind of slow but progressively we've gotten a little more and more urgent,” senior Michael Meyer said. “I've seen progression so far already, which is good.”

Medford opened its season Tuesday night with a non-conference 1-1 tie at Rice Lake, a team that has become a bit of a rival in the last five years. The team’s home opener is set for tonight, Thursday, at 7 p.m. against New London. GNC play starts already on Tuesday, Sept. 3 with a big one against always-tough Rhinelander at 7 p.m. at Raider Field.

Meyer is one of three co-captains named late last week, joining senior Dominic Fennell and junior Nathan Schuld. If anyone saw soccer guys playing on the turf in the off-season, Derr said these three were likely the ones getting the workouts organized.

“We’ve had Sunday captains practices since about Thanksgiving,” Meyer said.

“Some of us came out here almost every day during the summer,” Schuld said.“We were running, doing drills, stuff like that to get ready,” Fennell said.

Getting the freshmen acclimated was part of that off-season process and there is no doubt some of those youngsters will contribute this season. Derr said the first week featured its share of uncertainty from the young players and, at the same time, the eagerness of the upperclassmen to get the program back to where they feel it belongs.

“The freshmen aren’t sure what to expect,” Derr said. “Even if they’re doing as much work as they can, it’s hard to be prepared for what high school sports is. That first week is a steep learning curve. We have so many freshmen. It takes a little time to figure out the intensity and what’s expected of them.

“We’ve said we just have to be patient,” he added. “Everybody is so gung-ho to get the season going and to make a mark. They’re try- trying so hard. They just need to take a step back and be a little patient, both on offense and defense. Sometimes you just have to let the game come to you.”

One of the goals for this year’s team is to become a more offensive-minded team. The Raiders scored just 18 times during their 6-91 2023 season, which included a 3-6-1 mark in the GNC. Derr said part of that was just that the conference had good defensive-minded squads.

“This year it's looking like we're definitely a more offensive-minded team,” Fennell said. “So we're going to try to score a lot of goals.”

“Yeah, last year we didn't score too many,” Meyer said. “Hopefully we can change that.”

Fennell and Meyer are two of the players Medford expects to be in the scoring mix. Fennell’s highlight last year was scoring the only goal in the opening seconds of a 1-0 win over Rice Lake. The lowlight of that Sept. 30 game was Meyer being lost for the rest of the fall due to a freak hip injury in warm-ups.

Senior Grant Neubauer, who scored two goals, and juniors Keegan Neitzel and Ethan Emmerich were other returning players Derr mentioned as Raiders who should get chances to fill the scoring gap left by the graduated Adyn Gripentrog and Dayne Jacobson.

“I’m really looking forward to Dominic getting some more opportunities on that wing,” Derr said. “Dom is going to have some big shoes to fill but he’s definitely capable of doing that. He’s looking faster and stronger than he did last year. I think he’s going to be a big influence. Grant Neubauer and Keegan Neitzel had some significant time on the offensive end as well. Ethan Emmerich is on the other wing. He had some great opportunities last year. He seemed to be in the right spots a lot of the time. Hopefully we can get him in those right spots again this year and put the ball in the back of the net a little more. Michael is going to be hitting some long shots I have a feeling. I know he really wanted to score last season and then he got injured. I think he’s ready to go.”

Schuld will be looked at to lead a defensive back line that also brings back junior Lucas Mahner and senior Anthony Seidel.

“I think we're pretty strong this year,” Schuld said. “I think it will be about the same as last year but I'm going to try to make it more intense, keep the guys in line a little bit better. We definitely need to talk more on the back line.”

“Returning those three guys makes us stronger than expected,” Derr said. “It’s filling that other center spot that is the question at this point. We have some younger guys who look ready to step up and we have some options with moving guys around.”

Senior Cale Schulz is back for his second year as the goal keeper. He earned honorable mention in the GNC for his work there last year. Medford gave up just 30 goals, an average of 1.7 per game. Unfortunately the offense wasn’t always there to pick him up.

Freshmen Jasper Stokes and Eric Paul figure to get time at the JV level at the goalie position.

“I think as far as being a shot-stopping goal keeper Cale covered so much ground last year it was hard to score on him,” Derr said. “He’s going to bring a lot of experience back this year.”

“He never does anything too silly,” Meyer said. “He's just consistent.”

Also back on the varsity are juniors Oliver Koffler and Keagan Gehrke. Sophomore Luke Semrau got some minutes late in the year. Marshall Buechel is the Raiders’ other sophomore, while Jason Scott is the sixth senior and Hayden Spangler is a new junior aiming for varsity time.

Judah Wipf, Colton Long, Beck Mayrer and Levi Zuleger are among the freshmen making an early push for varsity time.

Jake Dassow, a top goalie in the conference for Medford in 2021 and 2022, is the program’s new JV coach.

“He has a lot of experience with being a goalie,” Derr said. “That’s going to help Jasper and Eric and also just defensively in organizing the defense. He’ll be a great asset there.” Onyi Ekwueme, the GNC’s 2019 Offensive Player of the Year, has been offering help as well. “Having a 20-plus a year goal scorer helping out the offensive guys on how to make runs and put the ball in the back of the net will hopefully really help those guys,” Derr said. Mosinee was a bit of a surprise champion in the GNC last fall, going 8-1-1 and finishing two points ahead of 8-2 Lakeland. Lakeland, however, got its revenge in WIAA Division 3 tournament play, beating Mosinee 1-0 in the sectional semifinals. The TBirds finished 15-4-1 overall, ending one win shy of state with a sectional final loss to Somerset. The sectional final is scheduled to be played in Medford on Nov. 2, giving the Raiders something to shoot for. Their first goals, however, are to be a GNC title contender and get themselves into a position to at least host one regional game.

“We're coming for the win this year,” Schuld said. “We're going for all of it.”

“We really want to have a home playoff game and hopefully get a plaque so we can hold something up at the end of the year,” Meyer said.

Grant Neubauer gathers possession of the ball during the first half of Medford’s 1-1 season-opening tie at Rice Lake Tuesday. Ethan Emmerich had Medford’s goal, countering a first-half score by the Warriors. Medford hosts New London tonight, Thursday, at 7 p.m. TRAVIS NYHUS/RICE LAKE CHRONOTYPE