Hodags take it down to the wire, but Raiders stay unbeaten in GNC

MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL

The Medford boys basketball team got its second down-to-the-wire test of the season in conference play and survived it Friday with a 54-50 win at Rhinelander, the last team that had a shot of catching them in the GNC title chase.

The Hodags took a 32-25 lead on Jackson Smith’s offensive putback with 14:35 left, but Medford got seven big points from Logan Baumgartner, two free throws from Joe Sullivan and a pair of 3-pointers from Peyton Kuhn as well as a mid-range floater from Kuhn and two free throws from Baumgartner in a 19-5 run over seven minutes that put them back in the lead for good, but not without some stress down the stretch.

Baumgartner scored nine of his 14 points in the second half, returning to action earlier than expected after spraining his ankle in practice a week and a half earlier.

“It’s always hard to win there,” Brown said. “They defended hard and they chased our shooters. We’re lucky Logan played. He convinced me at about noon that day. The first half, we didn’t play him much, just a few minutes. The second half he had some big points for us and we came back when they got up by six or eight. We did enough to win. We defended pretty well. Give Rhinelander credit, they ran a couple of nice plays late in the game to get shots for guys to keep it tight. But we made our free throws. We were 16 of 20 coming off of two games where we missed 12 free throws both games. I was proud of us that way.”

Medford’s 44-37 lead with 7:15 to go dwindled to 46-44 when Smith scored with 1:40 left and had a chance to add a free throw, but missed. The Raiders came back with a huge three-point play from Ty Baker with 51.8 seconds left, but Jackson Labs buried a triple for the Hodags to cut the lead to 49-47. Baker calmly made two free throws with 33.7 seconds left and Sullivan added one of two after rebounding a Smith miss with 25.6 seconds to play.

But Ross Skeen kept hope alive for the home team by drilling a 3 with 12.4 ticks left. Sullivan hit two more big free throws with 7.6 seconds to play. Baker blocked a 3-point attempt by Quinn Lamers before he could get the shot in the air. There was an anxious moment when Baker and Rhinelander’s Travis Towne got tangled up and a whistle blew with one-tenth of a second remaining, but a double foul was called, nullifying any hope for Rhinelander.

The Raiders clicked early in the game, jumping ahead 12-5, but Rhinelander tightened up its defense, got some shots to fall and confidence to grow while taking a 24-23 halftime lead. Skeen hit a 3 and Smith got a three-point play off a Lamers steal to help the Hodags open up their seven-point lead early in the second half.

“I wasn’t happy with how we moved the ball or how we moved bodies offensively against their zone or man,” Brown said. “I thought we were lazy. I thought we were slow. Against the zone we didn’t cut it well. We didn’t look to the middle well. But we did get defensive stops when we needed them. Defense keeps you in games.”

Baumgartner’s 14 points led Medford. Kuhn had 13 and Baker hit double figures with 10. Sullivan added eight, Hupf chipped in six, Caleb Guden had a bucket and Owen Wipf added a free throw.

Hupf pulled down 11 rebounds and Baker had six. Hupf and Baker had three assists each and Baker had three steals.

The field-goal shooting stats were similar. Medford was 16 of 40 overall (40%), making 10 of 23 two-point shots and six of 17 3s. Rhinelander was 19 of 42 overall (45.2%), making 12 of 26 two-point shots and seven of 16 from long range. Free throws were big as Medford was 16 of 20 and the Hodags made only five of 11.

Smith led Rhinelander with 13 points before fouling out. Skeen and Towne scored 11 apiece. The Hodags are 9-2 in the GNC and 12-5 overall following wins Monday and Tuesday at Lakeland and Rhinelander.

“Hopefully if we can take care of business in the playoffs, maybe we’ll see them again,” Brown said. “We have to be ready. Every team now that we’ll see from this point out has seen us at least once. Hopefully we can do the same thing we did against Pines. We can say, now it’s time to lock in, we’re at home, let’s go take care of business.”