Offense catches fire in 88-60 rout of Merrill

MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL

In their first two wins of the young season, defense carried the Medford Raiders. On Tuesday, the offense and rebounding stole the show in front of the home crowd in an impressive 88-60 non-conference win over Merrill.

Logan Baumgartner broke out in a big way, pouring in a career-high 36 points and the Blue Jays had no answer for the relentless hustle of senior Joe Sullivan, who added 23 points, six rebounds, five steals and three assists in the high-energy contest.

The Raiders weren’t exactly shooting with pinpoint accuracy in the early going, but Sullivan and his teammates created scoring production by pounding the offensive boards. That energy set the tone and once the Raiders knocked down a couple of first-half 3s, everyone wearing white attacked with confidence and wore down the 1-2 Blue Jays.

“At Chippewa Falls, I was really happy to see where our defense was and Lakeland too,” head coach Ryan Brown said of the team’s 3-0 start. “I thought we were running good offense and took care of the ball. We just weren’t making shots. (Tuesday) in the first half, I thought our defense was a little lazy, but we started to hit shots and we hit the offensive boards hard. There were a lot of hustle plays that we made. So that was what we talked about at halftime. I thought we were much better in the second half. We held them to zero 3s and we were in much better defensive position.”

Baumgartner scored the game’s first points on a 3-pointer and the Raiders never trailed, leading by as much as 33 late in the second half.

After Merrill pulled within 16-15 in the first half, Baumgartner and Merrill’s Bradyn Pieper traded 3s. Moments later, a basket by Merrill’s Sam Reiman tied the game at 20-20.

But Sullivan knocked down a 3 and Baumgartner followed with a score to break the tie. Sullivan answered a Troy Mootz 3 with a backcourt steal after Merrill thought it had secured a defensive rebound and scored on a onehanded drive to the rim. Baumgartner canned a right-side 3-pointer off an inbound play to open up a 30-23 lead.

Tanner Hraby hit two 3s, including one from the left corner off an assist from Baumgartner along the baseline and Baumgartner knocked down two more triples to open up a 44-29 lead. Brigham Kelley’s putback with three seconds left gave the Raiders a 46-33 halftime lead. Medford collected 14 of its 20 offensive rebounds in the first half. Overall, Medford outrebounded Merrill 43-27.

“I loved it seeing guys like Big Rig (Kelley) and Charlie Kleist and Joe just getting on the offensive boards and getting us extra possessions early in the game,” Brown said. “I thought that definitely set the tone for the rest of the game.”

Sullivan scored off yet another offensive rebound after Merrill had pulled within 51-41 and that helped start another surge that put the game away. Kleist, who was one of the Raiders to gain a shot of offensive confidence with seven points, scored back-to-back baskets to make it 63-47. The first came off a nice back cut and an assist from Hraby. The second came when he ran the floor and Baumgartner found him with a long outlet pass. Baumgartner followed that with his sixth 3-pointer of the night, then he assisted Kleist again following a turnover and he scored in transition to open up a 70-47 lead with 7:53 left.

Kleist finished with seven points, two rebounds and two assists.

Baumgartner’s seventh and final 3-pointer made it 73-49. He hit seven of 15 3-point shots, 12 of 30 overall and grabbed 13 rebounds.

“We talked about Garrett Strebig. When he started his senior year (2016-17) he went like zero for 20 in the first two games and ended up hitting nine 3s and eight 3s in games and shooting 45%,” Brown said. “So we said hopefully we can see the same thing with Logan. He finished that Lakeland game hitting three of his last five (3-pointers). He started the season zero for 10. He’s got confidence and he knocked down some shots, but he did it in a lot of different ways. He was getting in the post. He wasn’t afraid to get down there. He was driving and dishing. That’s going to be a huge weapon for us along with our other guys on the outside who can make shots.”

One of those guys is Hraby, who finished with 10 points and three assists. Senior Sam Blair was another one to make some confidence-building plays as he finished with five points, including a triple. Quinton Tlusty hit a late 3 and had another spin out. Steve Hraby drew loud cheers from the student section with his first varsity bucket and drew a charge and Kelley finished with two points and six rebounds.

“Early we got a nice pass to Charlie and he kicked it back out,” Brown said. “With some encouragement from us on the bench, he created some nice moves to finish. I thought Zach Rudolph in transition made a couple of nice plays. He made a nice no-look pass to Logan. Other guys just making plays and making us not one or two dimensional was big. That’s going to be so key because you know Logan and Joe are going to draw a lot of attention. So those other guys, they just have to have their hands and feet ready to shoot. We have confidence they can knock them down. Their teammates will make that pass and make that play so they get the open shot.”

Pieper led three Blue Jays in double figures with 14 points. Reiman had 12 and Mootz knocked down three 3-pointers and scored 11. Medford gets back into Great Northern Conference play Friday at Antigo in a game that tips at 7:15 p.m.

Medford 56, Lakeland 39

Medford’s defense was solid from start to finish, keeping the Raiders in front until the offense kicked in midway through the second half of a 56-39 win at Lakeland Friday in the Great Northern Conference opener for both teams.

The Raiders got out to leads of 10-2 and 22-11, but the offense went on a dry spell that allowed Lakeland to creep within 25-23 at halftime. It was still 30-26 with 12 minutes to go, but the Raiders closed with a dominant 29-13 run to improve to 2-0 and drop Lakeland to 1-4 overall.

Baumgartner had a 19-point, 10-rebound double-double and hit some key shots in the closing run. Sullivan added 19 points and nine rebounds.

Defensively, Medford, for the most part, achieved its goals of keeping Lakeland’s offense pinned to one side and contesting shots. The T-Birds made five of nine 3-point shots in the first half to stay in it, but they missed all four of their long-range attempts in the second half and were four of 16 overall from the field after halftime.

Lakeland shot 33.3% overall (12 of 36) and committed 20 turnovers.

Medford didn’t have a great shooting night, making 19 of 52 shots from the field (36.5%), but the Raiders scored 19 points off turnovers, 22 points in the paint and seven key second-chance points off nine offensive rebounds.

Back-to-back 3s by Sullivan and Baumgartner opened up the 10-2 lead. Blair hit a triple, Caleb Guden blocked a shot on the defensive end, grabbed the ball and scored on a drive to the rim and Tanner Hraby got a putback to push the lead to 11, before Lakeland closed the first half on its 12-4 run, highlighted by six Will Fortier points and 3s from Carter Quade and Layton Larson.

A tough left-handed score in the paint by Sullivan with 11:50 left kick-started Medford’s big closing run. Baumgartner sank a pair of 3s from the top of the key and Guden got a putback for a 43-30 lead with 7:55 to go. Sullivan tipped in a layup attempt by Baumgartner off a steal and Baumgartner buried another triple to open up a 49-34 lead as the game slid under the four-minute mark. Guden’s trey with 2:10 left gave Medford its biggest lead at 56-36.

Guden finished with seven points on three-of-four shooting. Hraby scored six, Blair had three points and Rudolph got a first-half bucket in transition. Kelley grabbed four rebounds and had two steals. Baumgartner had six steals and Sullivan had three. Sullivan and Baumgartner had two assists apiece.

Fortier’s 12 points led the T-Birds. He also had eight rebounds.