WEEK 8 FOOTBALL - Thursday games bring early start to week
WEEK 8 FOOTBALL
The second-to-last week of the high school football season gets an early start with two rare Thursday games. All three local teams will be heavily favored to win their home matchups.
In Medford, the Raiders can clinch a share of the Great Northern Conference championship with a win over the Rhinelander Hodags in a Thursday night special at Raider Field. The game kicks off at 7 p.m. following the 4:30 p.m. JV2 game with Stanley-Boyd.
While Medford sits atop the league at 50 and is 6-1 overall, Rhinelander has dropped three straight since a 28-7 win over Wausau East in week four and is 1-4 in the GNC and 3-4 overall. The Hodags must win Thursday and next week against Merrill to have a shot at qualifying for the WIAA post-season.
“They’re fighting for their playoff lives,” Medford head coach Ted Wilson said. “They have to upset us to even have a chance at qualifying for the playoffs. I’m sure they’re going to come out with everything they can to try to be successful against us. They have some nice athletes. They’ll be liked a caged animal backed into a corner. You really have to try to come out swinging when that happens.”
The Hodags put up a solid fight Friday in a 26-6 home loss to the team trying to keep pace with Medford in the GNC standings, Mosinee. But three touchdown passes from Mosinee quarterback Treve Stoffel to tight end Brady Lokken, including an early 70-yarder, were too much for the Hodags to overcome.
Rhinelander got a 70-yard touchdown from its leading rusher for the season, Cyrus Leisure (470 yards, 8.9 yards per carry).
Medford is at Mosinee (4-1, 5-2) next week for a potential GNC championship battle with the Indians, who host Antigo this Friday.
“We have to make sure we don’t look past (Rhinelander),” Wilson said. “It would be easy for us to be looking ahead to the Mosinee game and thinking we have this thing wrapped up a little bit. But it’s an important one for seeding purposes to make sure that we have at least a share of the conference crown. So there’s a lot of reasons for us to come out and play well.”
The other Thursday game has Rib Lake hosting Athens at 7 p.m. in Northwoods East Conference eight-player action.
The Blue Jays haven’t had any luck putting notches in the win column this fall, coming in at 0-6 overall and 0-5 in league play. But Rib Lake is well aware that Athens played the conference’s two unbeatens tough. Hurley escaped Athens with a 12-6 win on Sept. 20 and Phillips eventually pulled away this past Friday for a 38-24 win.
Hurley is at Phillips Friday with the winner taking control of the conference title chase with one week remaining. Rib Lake (4-1, 4-2) is at Hurley next week.
“Their record does not necessarily reflect their play,” Rib Lake head coach Jonah Campbell said. “Just watching film and seeing the scores and how they’ve done this year, they are a tough team. They play hard across the board. They’ve struggled a little bit to compete in the points department, but when you watch them, they held Phillips to 38 points and they were in it in the first half. They played physical, they moved the ball well. Obviously there are some things that are holding them back, but they’re going to make it a tough game. It’s not just a winless team. They look tough on film, they’re going to play hard and they’re going to give us a game.”
Athens is a young squad, led offensively by junior quarterback Kamden Zarnke (337 passing yards, 205 rushing yards) and junior running back Evin Passehl (66 carries, 335 yards, four touchdowns and 14 pass receptions).
The Gilman Pirates have the lone Friday game of the week. The Pirates, who are 4-1 in the North Central East Conference and 5-1 overall, host struggling Lake Holcombe, whose only win is a forfeit over Valley Christian of Osceola, who wound up not playing this season. The Chieftains did lose a close one, 26-22 to Wayland Academy of Beaver Dam, in the replacement game on Sept. 26. But none of their other games have been close. They close the season next week against Cornell in a matchup between the conference’s cellar dwellers.
Gilman, meanwhile, looks to fine tune before its tries to upset top-ranked and unbeaten Owen-Withee next week in a game with conference championship implications. Owen-Withee has a good one this week, hosting North Central West leader Clayton on Friday.
Gilman head coach Robin Rosemeyer said Lake Holcombe will try to hit defenses with big pass plays.
“We have to keep executing offensively,” Rosemeyer said. “Defensively we have to keep making sure we’re getting into our gaps and being good tacklers and just doing our responsibilities.”
