Raiders continue push toward GNC title with win at Tomahawk

Tomahawk got some offensive movement and was able to eat a lot of firsthalf clock Friday, but the Hatchets couldn’t score, while Medford did the first four times the offense touched the ball carrying the Raiders to a fifth straight win, 38-7 on the Hatchets’ home field.

Paxton Rothmeier ran for 220 more yards and four touchdowns, launching him to second in the state with 1,474 yards this season, and he scored Medford’s fifth touchdown on defense in the win, which put the Raiders at 5-0 in the Great Northern Conference and 6-1 overall.

The Hatchets fell to 1-4, 2-5 but they made a positive impression on Medford head coach Ted Wilson.

“Our kids played well. We executed,” Wilson said. “I’m actually very impressed with Tomahawk and how hard they played and their physicality level. They have some nice lineman and a nice running back. I think going forward they’re going to be a nice program. They're a good team.”

The Hatchets have been limited offensively since losing their starting quarterback Rex Reilly to injury in week four. With freshman Cash Olsen taking the snaps, the Hatchets did a decent job of possessing the ball in a fast-moving first half, but two drives stalled in Medford territory and the Raiders quickly went the other way and scored, building a 22-0 halftime lead that was going to be tough for the Hatchets to come back from.

Tomahawk’s first drive got inside Medford’s 35 before the defense finally got the Hatchets into a long down-anddistance situation. The Hatchets punted on fourth and nine, pinning Medford on its 10-yard line. In 10 plays, the Raiders covered the 90 yards. Rothmeier started it with a 22-yard run. Parker Lissner’s 21yard pass to Evan Paul put the ball at Tomahawk’s 13 and, three plays later, Rothmeier scored a 2-yard touchdown. Lissner hit Paul for the two-point conversion, making it 8-0 with 27 seconds left in the first quarter.

Tomahawk again got positive yardage on runs from Brayden Larson and Tiegan Sarazin to get well into Medford’s side of the field on its second possession. A 12yard third-down completion from Olsen to Zach Germano gave the Hatchets a first down on the 22, but a 5-yard penalty and tackles by Evan Wilkins for no gain and Tripp Reamer for a 1-yard loss put the Hatchets behind the sticks.

“Having the freshman quarterback in there I knew they didn’t really want to throw the ball with him,” Wilson said. “We were trying to get them into a down and distance where maybe they’d be forced to. That was something we wanted to do. But they have a nice running game. They have three nice linemen and (Larson) runs really hard. The fullback (Sarazin) is a sophomore and he’s a good player also. They did a good job of trying to stay ahead of the chains.”

Rothmeier picked off a fourth-down pass by Olsen and the Raiders’ offense went 82 yards in 12 plays, capping the drive with Rothmeier’s 1-yard run with 1:06 left in the half. Paul caught another two-point pass for a 16-0 lead.

Paul then made one of the game’s key plays, chasing down Mason Hensel on a 45-yard kickoff return that might have gone the distance had it not been for Paul’s hustle. He brought Hensel down at Medford’s 39-yard line.

“He’s a track kid, so he’s got really good top-end speed,” Wilson said of Paul. “He chased the kid down and saved a touchdown. We talk about that all the time trying to rally to the ball and prevent big plays. That was a big play by him.”

The Hatchets went four and out, including three incomplete passes, to give Medford 37 seconds to work with. The Raiders didn’t need much of that as Rothmeier went 65 yards on the first play to open up a three-score lead. He got through a huge hole at the line of scrimmage opened up by Hunter Jochimsen on one side and Blake Tischendorf on the other and quickly got to the left sideline to outrun the rest of the Tomahawk defense.

“We put in that particular formation for that type of situation where I was hoping they would notice we’re in shotgun, three wide receivers, no tight end,” Wilson said. “They had a tendency to take guys out of the box. I was hoping they would take guys out of the box, they did take guys out of the box and we had our best blockers and our best runner, so it worked out for us. It was well blocked, well executed.”

Sawyer Elsner’s 15-yard return of a short kickoff gave Medford a short field to start the second half. Rothmeier’s 16-yard touchdown run ended the 45-yard drive and put the Raiders up 30-0. He took a direct snap and ran left to the wide side, where his teammates gave him a wall of blocking and an easy run to the end zone.

“That was extremely well blocked,” Wilson said. “It was the same kind of thing. We kind of noticed during the game they weren’t really shifting to our puma set which gives us an extra body to get over there. When we have the extra body it should make it easier for us to seal that edge. The kids blocked it well.”

On the first play of Tomahawk’s next drive, Ben Gruber stood Olsen up for what was going to be a 1-yard loss, but before forward progress was fully stopped, Rothmeier took the football right out of Olsen’s hands and went the other way for a 44-yard touchdown to put the running clock in motion with 6:32 left in the third quarter.

Larson got Tomahawk’s touchdown against Medford’s second unit with 4:54 left in the game.

Medford finished with 293 yards of total offense, 266 of which came in the running game. Lissner was two for four in passing for 27 yards. Tomahawk had 199 total yards, including 173 on the ground. The Raiders had to do some defensive switching again at linebacker with Charlie Gierl missing the game due to illness. This time, it was Evan Czarnezki’s turn to fill in at Medford’s most snake-bitten position this season.

“Evan Czarnezki, for getting thrown in kinda to the wolves there and never really having to play linebacker before, did a pretty decent job,” Wilson said. “He’s a kid that really does well in taking coaching and works his tail off.”

The Raiders can clinch a share of the Great Northern Conference today, in a rare Thursday night matchup with the Rhinelander Hodags (1-4, 3-4) that kicks off at 7 p.m. at Raider Field.