recent lift in the last ….

recent lift in the last month from sophomore guard Will Gretzinger, who has emerged as another 3-point threat. Senior Ryan Jamison is a capable shooter as well, having hit as many as five 3s in a game this year. Inside, 6-3 senior Jackson Zettler was a thorn in Medford’s side in the two regular-season meetings. He made five of six shots while scoring 14 points and added seven rebounds in Rhinelander’s win. He had six offensive rebounds and eight points during Medford’s win at Raider Hall.

Rhinelander surpassed the 70-point mark offensively in its first two games and then didn’t do it again until its regular- season finale against Tomahawk. Now the Hodags have done it in three of their last five games.

Medford’s constant has been its defense, which allows 50.5 points per game. The Raiders ran into an elite player Saturday in Fox Valley Lutheran’s Josiah Butler, who went off for 39 points while hitting seven of 10 3-pointers. Since Pines broke the Raiders down for 76 in that January loss, Medford has allowed just three opponents to get over 60 and held four to 41 or less. Even in its most recent loss, River Falls, a two-seed on the other side of the sectional bracket, scored only 50.

As for the seedings that were announced on Sunday, Feb. 27, Medford said its four-seed was a bit of a motivating factor, but simply surviving each round is more important to the Raiders than proving a computer wrong.

“I was expecting the three-seed, somewhere a little higher,” senior Brigham Kelley said. “But then the four came out and we just said we have to take care of business one game at a time and we did.”

“We were excited about it,” Brown said. “We thought we should be the 3-seed, but when we weren’t we said it’s an opportunity to play two different teams. The hard and nerve-wracking part about that is that when you watch someone on film, you don’t know where that puts you. When you’ve played someone you know, it’s like OK when we D up we can make them do this. But when you see someone on film and you seen them play good against good teams you wonder, can our defense still withstand what it needs to do.”

The other side

Tonight’s winner will face one more major hurdle that stands in the way of its dream of going to the state tournament in Saturday’s sectional final.

Tonight’s other semifinal features Mississippi Valley Conference rivals La Crosse Central and Onalaska in a game being played at La Crosse Logan. Central comes in at 25-1 and has not lost to a Wisconsin team this year. Onalaska, the defending sectional champion took some graduation hits after last year but is 19-5 and went 8-4 in the MVC.

This rivalry, however, is among Wisconsin’s fiercest right now and Onalaska is on a 10-1 run of its own right now, giving this game an anything-can-happen kind of feel. In the regular season, Central survived a 40-38 grinder at home on 40-38 five days after beating Medford. On Feb. 18, Central won 72-61 on the Hilltoppers’ home court.

The Riverhawks have used a balanced offense that includes five double-digit scorers on average, good overall size and a solid defense to find their success this year. Central shot 54% from the field and only turned the ball over five times in its win over Medford.

Third-seeded Onalaska isn’t much different. The Hilltoppers also have no lights-out scorers but have enough capable scorers, enough size and play good enough defense to hang with just about anyone. They’ve held opponents to less than 50 points 12 times. They got to the sectional with a 58-45 semifinal win over sixth-seeded Menomonie, who Medford beat 46-33 on Jan. 18, and a 68-60 win at River Falls on Saturday.