‘FOUR YEARS IN THE MAKING’

MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER PREVIEW

Raiders bring sky-high expecations into 2022

While there was a Great Northern Conference co-championship in 2019 and a WIAA state tournament appearance in the Covid fall of 2020, those years were just a precursor to what the Medford boys soccer program feels it can achieve in 2022.

Fourth-year head coach Nathan Bilodeau and his senior-heavy squad have been building for three years and now it is time for it all to come together.

“This is years in the making,” senior co-captain Zach Rudolph said. “We’ve been waiting for this year.”

“This is a ‘four years in the making’ year,” Bilodeau said. “This is the first group that I’ve been able to coach at a varsity level for four years. This is the first class that I had that I was able to instill my coaching philosophy and the team culture that I’ve been working toward where they’ve been a part of it since day one. It’s a really special year and it’s a great group of soccer players. I say soccer players because for this senior class, this is their sport. These guys are soccer through and through.

“We have a tremendous amount of talent on the team,” he added. “A tremendous amount of team atmosphere, team culture. The drive to work together to win games is nothing like I’ve seen before. It’s a great year to showcase Medford soccer. I’m very, very excited about this fall, it can’t come soon enough.”

The anticipation started to be realized Tuesday when the Raiders opened with a 5-1 win over Baldwin-Woodville in the first of six straight home games. Medford hosts Shawano tonight, Thursday, at 7 p.m., hosts New London and New Richmond in a Saturday triangular that starts at 10 a.m. and then gets Great Northern Conference play started with two big ones next week as Rhinelander visits Tuesday and defending GNC and WIAA Division 3 regional champion Lakeland is in town Sept. 1. Both of those games start at 7 p.m.

This varsity roster is built around its 10-member senior class, though a handful of juniors will have roles too.

“This is not just a good team, these guys are all like best friends,” he said. “These are their buddies they hang out with. It’s not like they sit together on the bus, play games and when they all go to school they disperse and talk with their other friends. Their friends are on the team. It just builds that synergy that you can’t really force. It just kind of has happened naturally. I think with these guys being mostly all seniors is just going to create a lot of strength for us. I think that’s going to be the key to success in the fall.”

“It really seems like this year everybody is playing with a lot of passion,” senior co-captain Vincent Seidel said. “Everybody really cares about what they’re doing because they don’t want to let the other guys down. They want to lift each other up. It’s really good to see something like that.”

Preparation for this season began in the summer with the team playing in several club tournaments. The team repeated as tournament champions in large tournaments at Appleton and Stevens Point. While playing in U19 age groups, where teams could use last year’s graduates, the Raiders stuck to using players still in high school.

“The intent was to build synergy, to build culture, to build formation around the fall. We did that,” Bilodeau said. “We faced some really challenging teams. Teams that had 19-year-old guys on them. We found success, that’s just a testament to these guys’ dedication and their focus, their drive and their tenacity toward wanting to win and wanting to build a successful team for fall.”

“It’s huge,” senior co-captain Silas Wipf said. “Playing for two months, practicing for two months in the summer like that, you build that team chemistry and it helps a lot in the fall.”

It’s probably fair to say the Raiders’ 2021 season ended with a disappointing 8-8-2 overall record and 5-5 mark in the GNC. Most observers would agree the GNC was as deep as it’s ever been, especially with the rise of Division 3 sectional finalist Mosinee, so wins weren’t easy to get. Also, the Raiders went through an offensive drought in mid-season that they hope won’t repeat itself.

Rudolph moves up from a midfield spot to take the role of striker, while a bevy of talented midfielders look to work with him and the wings to not only outpossess opponents but aggressively strike when scoring chances exist. Wipf, Aaron Schield and a talented senior addition, Yubin Yonatan Murillo Aguirre –– better known as “Jimmy” –– are expecting to control the middle of the field. Last year’s scoring drought coincided with time Schield missed due to injury.

“These games we play are going to be hard-fought matches because typically those games are won or lost through the middle and we are so strong through the middle,” Bilodeau said. “It’s getting the wings involved that’s going to add that extra layer of dynamic pressure, if we can get those guys to be a little more proactive than reactive.”

Juniors Adyn Gripentrog and Aidan Ball look to fill those wing positions on the offensive end.

“Basically my goal up top is to just put balls away,” Rudolph said. “I know we have guys like Silas and Aaron and Jimmy in the middle. They can dish it off and they can find the right guy. They know what they’re doing. I trust them. All they have to do is put it to my foot and hopefully I can just put it away.

“We’ve been working on creativity in the final third,” Wipf said. “I think that will help a lot in getting the ball to Zach.”

The Raiders also expect to be rock solid on the defensive end. The four lined up in front of goal keeper are all seniors. They include Caden Tessmann and Mason Gripentrog in the middle and Seidel and Nick Kowalski as wingbacks. Senior Braeden Long is a two-year letter winner and the Raiders added Alex Gonzalez, a transfer from Arcadia, who will compete for varsity minutes.

“These guys are the most experienced guys we’ve got on the team,” Bilodeau said. “We have a lot of strength back there. We’ve been working really hard with possession defensively, not just booting the ball out. Instead we want to make better outlet passes and find a teammate rather than just get it out of danger. There are times for that, but the stuff we’re trying to coach is let’s maintain possession, make a better pass rather than just kicking it up the field.”

“I think our defense is looking like a very solid group,” Seidel said. “They all understand how to get the ball on offense and what to do with it. The only thing we really have to work on is communication and confidence. Confidence is just a killer if you don’t have it in the right way. Sometimes you can just shy away from balls and sometimes you don’t vocalize what you need to do. That can end up bad, but this group is really good with that as of now.”

Dassow is the undisputed starter in goal for the second straight year. His coach and teammates believe he’ll be tough for opponents to beat.

“Some of the stuff I’ve seen him do over the summer in the club has just been phenomenal,” Bilodeau said. “Jake really likes to put his body on the line to make a save. He’s that dynamic keeper that we really, really need.” Spencer Rau, Grant Neubauer, Michael Meyer and Dominic Fennell are also vying for varsity time and the team just added Naut van Meurs, a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands, who should fit in well too. “My goal is to win conference,” Bilodeau said. “I think that’s the team’s goal as well. We don’t get hung up on the individual stuff. We don’t really focus on that until the end of the year. Our main focus is winning conference. Let’s be the leader in our conference and then look to the playoffs.” “We’re not looking too far ahead,” Rudolph said. “We’re just trying to take things one day at a time. Work hard every day. It’s basically the finale of our high school careers. Our starting lineup has a lot of seniors so it’s our last shot at making some noise in the conference and making a run in the playoffs. Everybody’s putting in the work.”