MEDFORD 26, HOLMEN 13 - Raiders keep grinding, earn satisfying first victory

MEDFORD 26, HOLMEN 13

The Holmen Vikings shut down Medford’s running game for much of Friday’s football season opener, but the Raiders got a spark from their passing game and then got the ground game going when needed late in a 2613 non-conference road win.

Medford trailed 10-0 in the second quarter but got a big score in the final seconds of the first half and then went back-and-forth with Holmen through the third quarter before pushing through in the fourth with two touchdown runs from Paxton Rothmeier.

“The kids did a good job of staying positive and grinding away,” Medford head coach Ted Wilson said. “We’re pretty young in certain spots so it’s taking us a little time to learn and figure out how to block and do things the right way. But I’m really proud of how they fought and kept after it. It was just really nice to watch them keep going, competing, keep playing even though things were not necessarily going our way.”

Rothmeier finished with 178 hard-earned rushing yards, which wound up being Medford’s total on the ground as the rest of the ball carriers combined for zero net yards. Senior quarterback Parker Lissner completed 10 of 18 passes for 188 yards and two scores, both to senior Charlie Gierl.

Defensively, the Raiders allowed one long touchdown drive in the first quarter, but were stout after that, giving up just two field goals the rest of the way against Holmen’s flexbone scheme. Like the offense, Medford’s defense did its best work in the fourth quarter, forcing a punt to get the ball back with Medford trailing 13-12 and then, after Medford took a 2013 lead, stopping Holmen on a fourth down in Raider territory with 3:36 left.

“We really got it going,” senior Evan Paul said. “We kept our heads high, kept fighting. Sideline was all pumped, helped us get going. It was just great.”

While the game was tilted in Holmen’s favor in the first half as the Vikings went on a 73-yard drive that ended in Jack Barth’s 4yard touchdown run with 19 seconds left in the first quarter and a 66-yard drive that ended in a 33-yard field goal by their impressive kicker Ryland Eickhoff, the Raiders did have two scoring chances that went unfulfilled as well. They fumbled the ball away inside Holmen’s 15 on their first drive and then stalled on the 18 midway through the second quarter after a beautiful 51-yard sideline completion from Lissner to Paul got Medford to the red zone.

A Holmen punt gave Medford one last shot with 21.9 seconds left in the half, 64 yards away from the end zone. Lissner flipped a pass to the left to Rothmeier, who gained 23 yards and got 15 more yards tacked on with a facemask penalty. Just like that, the Raiders were 26 yards away and, on the next play, Lissner stepped away from traffic in the backfield and found Gierl in the right side of the end zone with 7.9 seconds left to pull the Raiders within 10-6.

“Normally I run a post on that, but then there was a guy there, so I re-routed to the corner of the end zone and Parker threw it right to me,” Gierl said. “A perfect pass.”

“That boosted our momentum so much,” Gierl said. “Going into halftime we needed that.”

“It got us back into the game mentally,” Wilson said. “Instead of being down 10-0, you’re only down 10-6 and you get the ball coming out of the half. There’s just a lot more positive energy, especially after being down to the 10-yard line and fumbling away a good chance.”

The teams traded punts to start the second half. Medford’s second possession was highlighted by two perfect left sideline passes by Lissner that found Hayden Koester for 17 yards and Sam Hierlmeier for 16. Rothmeier gained 10 on fourth and inches and, on the next play, Lissner again connected with Gierl in the end zone, this time from 17 yards out to give Medford its first lead at 12-10 with 3:32 left in the third quarter.

“I thought Parker did a good job,” Wilson said. “For the most part, the ball was thrown only where our guy was going to catch it. We had one overthrow and one underthrow that could’ve been big gains for us. But for the most part, he did a good job of putting the ball not in harm’s way, which is always important.”

Holmen’s only pass completion of the night, a 37-yard connection from junior quarterback Alex Berget to Jaren Nygren, set up Eickhoff’s second field goal, this one from 34 yards, to give the Vikings the lead back with 36.5 seconds left in the quarter.

Medford punted, pinning Holmen on its 11 with 9:27 left in the game. The Raiders gave up two first downs, but a dead-ball personal foul of the second of those first downs knocked the Vikings back 15 yards and then Gierl dropped Berget for a 5-yard loss on third and five. After the punt, it took Medford just one play to take the lead as Rothmeier took a direct snap and squeezed through a hole on the right side, tip-toed the sideline and then accelerated for a 52-yard scoring run. Lissner completed the two-point pass to Paul to put the Raiders up by seven with 6:15 left.

“I think we started to learn how to make sure that we were getting the first level blocked and then continue to what we call climb up the defense to get some other blocks,” Wilson said. “It’s not just enough to block the first five guys. I thought our kids did a good job of doing that.”

An 18-yard run by Barth pushed Holmen across midfield on the Vikings’ next drive, but on fourth and four from the 43-yard line, Paul, an All-GNC defensive back in 2023, got his third pass break-up of the night, knocking away a short pass intended for tight end Braedin Grandt.

“I had the wing but he moved over, so I bumped to the tight end,” Paul said. “I saw him come out and saw him turn around. I just jumped up there and got it. It was just a good read.”

From there, the Raiders ground out two more first downs. The Raiders took a shot after Holmen timeout with 50.3 seconds, trying to clinch the game with a third-and-five pass play that fell incomplete. But Rothmeier iced it on the next play with an 18-yard scoring burst off the left side.

Holmen finished with 274 yards, with 237 coming on the ground. Barth had 99 yards on carries and fullback Ezra Markofski had 89 on 22 attempts. Medford had 366 total yards. Rothmeier led five receivers with 61 yards on four catches.

“The defense did a good job,” Wilson said. “We’re not used to facing teams that have a field goal kicker like that. He was impressive. I think those were wins to keep them to a field goal. That was a big step in the right direction for all of us. Same as the offense, we have a lot of young guys learning how to play defense. They really took a lot of steps forward and really started to get much better by the end of the game and getting comfortable learning how to play.”

“It’s the beginning of the season, we always have those little bumps,” Gierl said. “We have to just keep fighting through them. We did that tonight. We kept going, fighting through blocks, moving our feet.”

Onalaska returns

Week two has Medford hosting Onalaska at 7 p.m. Friday in the home opener. The teams played twice a year ago with Medford’s running game overpowering the host Hilltoppers 52-34 in week two and Onalaska’s passing game returning the favor when it mattered most in a 35-16 WIAA Division 3 Level 2 playoff game at Raider Field.

Standout quarterback Adam Skifton and receiver Brodie Mickschl, the two players who hurt Medford most last fall, and several others have graduated and the Hilltoppers allowed three second-half touchdowns in a 277 home loss to West Salem in their opener Friday. But the Raiders expect a tough game.

Wilson said early on Onalaska isn’t showing as much of the spread look they’ve used the last couple of years, but the spread approach was more a result of the talent the Hilltoppers and head coach Tom Yashinsky had at their disposal.

“There’s a little bit less complete spread and they’re spending a little more time in the pistol with a tailback behind him and a fullback moving across in front of him trying to block and kick out,” Wilson said. “That’s how they’d run their offense previously. The last couple of years, obviously with a really good quarterback and the receivers they had, they didn’t do it as much. You can definitely tell they’re learning also. They’ve lost a lot of kids the last two years.”

Ian Kowal did complete 12 of 17 passes for 77 yards in Onalaska’s loss and Cameron Cornett ran for 70 yards and a score on 11 carries.

“They’ve been to Level 4 and Level 3 the last two years,” Wilson said. “I’m sure they still feel like a team to beat. They expect to win, and they’re well-coached. It’ll be a good game.”