Just like that, Raiders are GNC champions

MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER

The Medford Raiders are getting everyone’s best shot as they go through the second round of Great Northern Conference play, but they haven’t flinched and, on Tuesday, they clinched the second GNC title in school history a little earlier than expected.

Their second 1-0 win of the season over Mosinee combined with Rhinelander’s 2-0 win over Lakeland eliminated the T-Birds from title contention and left the Hodags as the only team that can still tie Medford, but that’s the best Rhinelander can do, trailing Medford by six points in the standings with two games to go.

And with Medford hosting last-place Antigo today, Thursday, at 7 p.m., the Hodags’ chances of a tie aren’t good.

“It feels good,” senior co-captain Zach Rudolph said of claiming another GNC title. The first was a shared title with Northland Pines in the senior class’s freshman year of 2019. “This was the goal coming in. It was the first goal on the list. It feels good to have that weight off your chest. Now we can rest up, get ready for the playoffs. It feels great.”

Medford is 8-0 in GNC play with two shootout wins for 22 points. Officially Medford is 10-1-3 overall “It’s obviously very exciting, but I think it’s more exciting for us to know that if we win these next two games it’ll be the first time in Medford history that we’ve gone undefeated while doing it,” senior Aaron Schield said.

Schield, who has been on a tear with assists, had a hand in the only goal in Tuesday’s game. It came just 2:21 off his corner kick that was first touched by Rudolph on an attempted header. Medford’s senior defensemen Vincent Seidel and Mason Gripentrog kept working on the battle for the loose ball and Gripentrog finally got what wound up being the only goal of the game.

It was the kind of game where it felt like the Raiders were always in control, yet they were always one breakdown or bad bounce away from another tie.

“We controlled the game, but when we take control of a game we have to create more scoring chances,” head coach Nathan Bilodeau said. “That’s where I felt like we came up short. A 1-0 win is a win. Obviously we’d like to get two or three insurance goals just to keep us feeling confident. But, like I said a win is a win no matter how you get there. Three points is three points.”

“I think the first time we just didn’t play our game in the first half and we stuck it to them in the second half,” Schield said while talking about the Raiders’ two 1-0 wins over the Indians. “I think today we played amazingly. But our opponent just had a very good defensive team and it’s hard to pick that apart sometimes. It’s hard to play our game. But, in the end we still won and that’s all that matters.”

This was Medford’s third straight grinder in conference play, which the Raiders don’t find surprising as they get through the second round of league play.

“We have a target on our backs now,” Rudolph said. “That’s definitely true. Pines gave us a battle. Lakeland gave us a battle and Mosinee’s always going to be a battle. It just shows the character of these guys to come in and scrap it out.”

“The second half of the season, it’s the real deal. Every point matters,” Bilodeau said. “Obviously some of it is OK, they’ve played us before. They know which players to watch. They know how we play. We’ve got a massive target on our back because we haven’t lost yet. Of course teams are going to step up. They want to win. They want to knock us off. They want to be the team that beat Medford. I don’t necessarily know that teams are changing the way they play. I think they’re elevating the way they play.”

The Raiders know they still have some elevating of their own play to do yet to reach the rest of the goals that are on their checklist. Getting the first box checked on Tuesday is just the start.

“I think when we played summer ball, we figured out that if we played that way in summer and we bring that into the conference that nobody can stop us,” Schield said. “I think we’re proving that to everyone else here.”

After tonight’s match with Antigo, the Raiders will take a week off before hosting Northland Pines on Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. to finish the regular season. WIAA Division 3 post-season play starts on Oct. 20. Seeding for the sectional half-bracket takes place on Sunday with Medford looking like a lock for the one-seed.

Shootout win

After 80 minutes of play Thursday where room to shoot was hard to find for both teams, Medford prevailed at Lakeland when the defenses went away, earning two key conference points in a shootout win at Lakeland.

In a game they needed to win in regulation to pull even with Medford atop the GNC standings, the T-Birds instead got denied by the crossbar with four minutes left in regulation, keeping the game tied at 1-1, and then only put two of five shots in the net in the post-game penalty kick shootout. Medford outscored Lakeland 3-2 in the shootout to keep firm control of the conference race. The T-Birds then fell out of the race completely on Tuesday.

Their play Thursday, however, earned Medford’s respect.

“That was a very physical game and I don’t think we were expecting that,” Bilodeau said. “The first time we played them it was exactly how we expected it to be –– slow, methodical, possessive, find the passing lanes, control the pace of the game. Almost exact opposite the second time. They got a little more direct, they got a little bit more physical, they played some long balls and tried to make stuff happen in our defensive third.”

“Usually they possess just like us,” Schield said. “They swing the ball, but Thursday it was a whole different story. So we had to adapt to that and learn their playing style.”

The Raiders didn’t get many great shots on Lakeland goal keeper Carter Quade in regulation, but they made their best opportunity count at 52:07 when Rudolph headed in a perfect corner kick that was delivered from Quade’s right by Aaron Schield.

That evened things after Lakeland took a 1-0 early lead at 18:33 when two Raiders collided while trying to defend a direct kick, leaving an easy clean-up goal for T-Bird star Yaroslav Myshchyshyn.

Other than that, quality chances were few and far between for the two teams, who both play the possession game well and, in this game, defended well in front of their keepers.

Lakeland, one could argue, had more quality chances, especially late in the game. Raider defender Caden Tessmann broke up a couple of advances by Lakeland forwards at the 61:25 and 65:40 marks. Back in the lineup for the first time since injuring his thumb in Medford’s first matchup with Lakeland on Sept. 1, Jake Dassow smothered a low rocket kicked by Myshchyshyn at close range following a scrum in front of the goal at 64:50. The crossbar saved the Raiders at the 76:00 mark on a rocket from Chandler Savel from 20 yards out.

In the shootout, Medford turned to their midfield standout, Naut van Meurs, to make the saves. Schield, Rudolph and Silas Wipf scored in the first three rounds to give Pace a 3-1 cushion. Van Meurs made two saves in the first three rounds.

Myshchyshyn scored in round four after Raider Nick Kowalski hit the post to make it 3-2. Van Meurs took the fifth shot and pushed it wide right, but Savel missed wide to the right to end it.

“I put Naut in goal for two reasons,” Bilodeau said. “One is Jake’s thumb, it was his first game back. We got the tie. So it was mission accomplished. The shootout did not matter. If we got one point or got two points, it was fine. So why risk it? The second reason is Naut is huge. We put our biggest guy in there. It turns out he played goalie in youth soccer and he knows what he’s doing. He guessed the right way every single time.”

Medford’s Caden Tessmann pushes the soccer ball through midfield toward the offensive third during Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Mosinee at Raider Field.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS

The Medford soccer team’s guests of honor, Taylor County K9 officer Tyr and his handler, Dylan Lindsley, get set to join the teams for pre-game introductions Tuesday. The team designated Tuesday’s game with Mosinee as Community Care night and raised funds to help the Sheriff’s Department purchase a transport kennel for Tyr.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS