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Medford took down some giants on its way to the 1983 Class A final

Medford’s loss to La Crosse Central Saturday marked just the second time in program history the Raiders have played in a WIAA boys basketball sectional final.

The first came 39 years ago at the end of the 1982-83 season and that two-weekend run probably remains the most impressive a Raider team has ever had.

Coached by Larry Connor, who returned to the bench that year after a two-season absence, the Raiders went 9-3 in the Lumberjack Conference, good for a second-place tie with Ashland, who swept them in the regular season. Park Falls won the league at 10-2, with both losses coming to Medford. Lakeland upset Medford 74-63 in the second-to-last game of the season to end the Raiders’ league championship bid.

The Raiders were 10-8 overall in the regular season, but lost three games by one point and two more by five. In the Feb. 9, 1983 issue of The Star News, Connor foreshadowed what was to come when he said, “We are continuing to improve every time we play and I really think we are about to reap some benefits from playing the Class A schools in nonconference games. We know that we can play with them in tournament, we hope the game’s outcome will be in our favor. I think the boys are gaining more confidence in each other with each game and right now, we are the best 7-5 basketball team in the state.”

Medford was in Class A in the WIAA’s three-class format and opened tournament play with a 66-60 home win over Chippewa Falls, a 15-3 team that had beaten the Raiders 54-53 in the regular season and shared the Big Rivers Conference championship. The next night, Medford met the other Big Rivers cochampion, Eau Claire Memorial, at UWEau Claire’s Zorn Arena. The Old Abes were 17-1 and ranked fourth in the state. But the Raiders knocked them off 46-39 for the third regional championship in school history. According to Medford’s team website, the others were in 1957 and 1978.

In the sectional semifinal at Eau Claire Memorial, the Raiders faced the Hudson Raiders, an 18-2 team playing in the Middle Border Conference back then. Senior Keith Kulas hit two free throws with two seconds left after receiving a three-quarter court pass from Rob Keefe and getting fouled and Medford won a 49-48 thriller to advance to the sectional final the next day against the state’s top-ranked team, Wisconsin Rapids, in Marshfield.

According to The Star News article of March 16, 1983, Kulas hit two free throws with 2:36 left to put Medford up 32-31, but Rapids’ Scott Roeder made two bonus throws with 31 seconds left and Brian Armitage made two more with less than 10 seconds to go to cap the 35-32 win for Wisconsin Rapids, who went on to lose 42-40 to Watertown the next weekend in a Class A state semifinal at the UW Fieldhouse.

Kulas was a first-team All-Lumberjack selection that year, as was junior Mark Miller. The 1982-83 roster also featured Keefe, Blake Bucki, Monte Loertscher, Rich Zank, Pat Tlusty, Brad Melvin, Bob Gelhaus, Kurt Lake, Steve Wibben, Scott Albers and Dave Kenney.

In between the 1983 and 2022 sectional final appearances, Medford teams won seven WIAA Division 2 regional championships but couldn’t get over the semifinal hump. The WIAA went to four divisions for basketball in the 1990-91 season and five divisions in 2010-11.

Glenn Bildsten took teams to the 1992, 1993 and 1994 sectional semifinals but they lost to Onalaska (80-47), Holmen (57-55 in overtime) and Adams-Friendship (43-42). Bildsten’s last team, the 1999-2000 squad, lost to Onalaska (60-44) in a sectional semifinal. Ron Lien’s 2007-08 team was defeated by Adams-Friendship (53-35) after beating Lakeland in a regional final and current head coach Ryan Brown led two recent teams to the semifinals, losing 51-49 and 52-51 heartbreakers to Wausau East and Rice Lake in 2017 and 2021.