Game turns late in first half; Tigers pull away from Raiders

NEW RICHMOND 32, MEDFORD 8

The Medford Raiders scored first Friday, lost some opportunities to add to it and then fell victim to a touchdown that changed the game just before halftime in a 32-8 non-conference loss at New Richmond.

Once the Tigers got rolling, they scored on four straight offensive possessions to break the game open and finished the game with 504 yards of total offense compared to Medford’s 159. As lopsided as those numbers look, this was a game where Medford was right there in the first half.

The key swings occurred from the midpoint of the second quarter to the end of the half. The Raiders, leading 8-6, had an apparent 21-yard touchdown pass from Logan Baumgartner to Charlie Kleist wiped out on a tough offensive pass interference call, but Ty Metz recovered a Tiger fumble four plays after that drive stalled, giving Medford another shot from New Richmond’s 32.

That drive ended quickly when Tiger Drew Effertz intercepted an overthrown pass in the end zone and New Richmond then drove 80 yards for the go-ahead touchdown. Medford gave the Tigers a first down by being in the neutral zone on fourth down late in the drive, nearly got an interception by linebacker Logan Kawa, but ultimately gave up a 23-yard touchdown pass with 22 seconds left from Seamus Scanlan, who dropped a pass just over Baumgartner’s hand on a corner route to the left sideline by receiver George Schroeder.

Medford recovered a surprise onside kick at midfield but couldn’t take advantage. New Richmond took that 12-8 lead into the locker room and drove 71 yards in just seven plays after the break to take an 18-8 lead and pulled away from there.

“I think part of it was we just wore down,” Medford head coach Ted Wilson said. “We wore down in the second half. They don’t have as many guys playing both ways as we do. That’s part of it. It just kind of snowballed. We don’t score on that one where Charlie got called for pass interference. If we score on that one, maybe we go into halftime 16-12 or 16-6 so it may be a little different story.”

The Raiders had early offensive success, primarily running the football and grinding out eight first downs in the first half. Two of them were by penalty, including a roughing the punter call that extended their second drive and gave them a first down on New Richmond’s 33. Seven plays later, Tucker Kraemer avoided a tackle, making a nifty cutback move to his left and scoring from 8 yards out to put Medford on the board. Peyton Gilles added the two-point conversion to make it 8-0 with 2:36 left in the first quarter.

Medford defense got its second stop of the quarter after a 36-yard catch and run by running back Andrew Trandahl put the Tigers into Medford territory as the Raiders held Ethan Turbeville to a yard on wide receiver sweep on fourth and seven. But the offense went three and out and a 25-yard punt return by Effertz set up a short 50-yard drive by New Richmond that was capped by a 34-yard scoring run by Miles Burke.

Gilles returned the ensuing kickoff 38 yards to the 45 to set up Medford’s next drive that included the key offensive pass interference call.

In the second half, Medford had just two first downs and New Richmond converted on scoring drives of 71, 90 and 49 yards to blow the game open. The Raiders bit on a play fake and Scanlan hit a wide-open Jacob Hagman for a 35-yard score, Trandahl capped the 90-yard drive with a 3-yard run to make it 25-8 and Trandahl scored from 12 yards out early in the fourth quarter.

“I thought defensively we played OK for a little while,” Wilson said. “Then all of a sudden, we just didn’t look like the same team in the second half.”

A diverse team offensively with several quick running and receiving options, New Richmond got 288 rushing yards led by Trandahl’s 136 yards on 26 attempts. Scanlan was 17 of 26 through the air for 216 yards with five receivers catching at least two passes.

“They have a really nice team,” Wilson said. “They’ve got some real good speed at the edge.”

Tukker Schreiner led Medford’s offense with 87 rushing yards in 16 attempts, while Kraemer added 42 yards on seven carries. The passing game struggled with Baumgartner completing just two of eight passes for 29 yards and had two passes in New Richmond territory picked off. The second one came in the fourth quarter, one play after Gilles returned a kickoff 71 yards to New Richmond’s 25. The Raiders had three turnovers overall.

“We made a lot of mistakes,” Wilson said. “There were a lot of yards left to be had. We need to clean up a lot of things. We’re not sustaining blocks at all at any level. Our spacing throwing the ball and receiving the ball was actually better at the scrimmage, so I don’t exactly know what happened there. We just have to get back to work. There were some good things that were done, but there are a lot of things that weren’t great. We just need to learn from them move forward and fix them for this week and the future.”

Up next for the Raiders is a trip to Amherst Friday for the final non-conference game of the regular season. An annual playoff contender in Division 5, the Falcons were 28-14 winners over Medford last year in a weather-shortened contest and opened this year with a 38-30 loss to a pass-happy team from Clintonville in their 2022 opener.

“They’re a spread team so we’re going to see a lot of the same things,” Wilson said. “They’re an option/spread team. When they’re running midline and veer, you have to be responsible for your guy. We have to read our keys. Some of what happened against New Richmond was all of a sudden guys are looking at the eye candy in the backfield and not what they’re supposed to watch. We have to have better eye discipline. Amherst passes the ball well, they run the ball well, they’re very well coached. They’re a good team.”