Other Hodags step up to ruin Raiders’ plans

WIAA DIV. 2 GIRLS HOOPS

Seeing them for the third time this season, the Medford Raiders had some plans for how they wanted to attack and defend the Rhinelander Hodags in Tuesday’s WIAA Division 2 regional opener.

As head coach Chad Fronk put it afterwards, those plans kind of worked. But kind of didn’t get it done in a 61-36 loss that ended the Raiders’ season.

The eighth-seeded Hodags played their most complete game of the three matchups with Medford this season, getting 20 points from Ava Lamers despite a defensive plan focused on containing her as much as possible. More importantly for the Hodags, they got scoring from several sources, shot 60% from the field and ran away from the Raiders in the second half to improve to 1114 and earn a trip to top-seeded New London (18-4) for a Friday regional semifinal.

Ninth-seeded Medford’s season ended at 6-19.

Defensively, Medford primarily used freshman Aliyah Pilgrim to face guard Lamers, by far Rhinelander’s leading scorer, when at all possible. Masaeda Krug filled that role too at times.

Fronk said the goal was to limit Lamers to 20 points or under. She got to 20. What the Raiders were counting on not happening was Leah Jamison hitting three 3s to finish with nine points, Morgan Van Zile scoring nine of her 11 points in the first half and, especially, Dawsyn Barkus, who had 13 points this season, according to WisSports.net statistics, hit three 3s and go four for four from the field while scoring 11.

“We know Lamers is going to score,” Fronk said. “We just didn’t plan on number four (Barkus) and the others. They just started making shots.”

The Raiders got 14 points and nine rebounds from senior Brooke Rudolph and stayed in the game early behind her nine first-half points. She sank two early 3s to pull Medford within 12-8 after the Hodags jumped ahead 9-2. A Pilgrim basket made it 17-13, but Jamison answered with a 3 and Lamers got a rebound bucket and a score off a steal to widen the lead to 11 at 24-13. Rudolph scored to end that little run, but Barkus got free and hit a short shot and, after Rudolph fed Rylee Hraby for a layup on a two-on-one break, Lamers got free on the baseline off a sideline inbound to score her eighth point of the half and put Rhinelander ahead 28-17.

Lamers scored four points and Tori Riopel added a basket in the paint for the first six points of the second half to quickly put Rhinelander up 34-17. Medford made a little run, getting a Rudolph 3 off a Breanna Kraemer kickout, a triple from Pilgrim and a long straight-on 3-ball from Hraby to get within 38-26 with just under 12 minutes to go.

But from there, missed shots and some turnovers added up for the Raiders and the Hodags went on a 16-0 run, capped by Barkus 3, to end the suspense. The Raiders, for the most part, handled Rhinelander’s full-court press and halfcourt traps well. But the Hodags still scored some costly points off turnovers when all was said and done and the shooting struggles Medford have gone through most of the year showed up in some key misses down low on shots that could’ve at least kept the Raiders in the game longer.

“It was way better,” Fronk said of Medford’s work against the press. “Our plan for handling the trap worked really well. Everything kind of worked. We just didn’t score. They made shots. We didn’t. I thought Aliyah did a great job on Lamers for a freshman trying to face guard a senior.”

Hraby scored seven points for Medford, Bryn Fronk had six in her final appearance for the Raiders and had five steals, 10 defensive deflections andfour rebounds. Pilgrim scored five and had four assists. Toryn Rau and Kraemer scored two points each. Kraemer had three rebounds and two assists.

Rudolph and Fronk will be key losses as the team’s obvious leaders this season. But after completing their first year together, Chad Fronk and assistant Keith Wicks are excited about what lies ahead for the otherwise young group that got major varsity minutes and some of the positive signs developing at the lower levels of Medford’s basketball program.

“It’s just really going to get easier going into next year I think,” Fronk said. “The kids won’t have to spend the first three weeks of the basketball season trying to figure out what we’re trying to do. Next year, we’ll be throwing a lot more at them.”

Mosinee 48, Medford 33

In their Great Northern Conference and regular-season finale Friday, the Raiders ended the game with a 22-point offensive flurry in the last 11 minutes, but that wasn’t enough to dig out of a 24-point hole in a 48-33 home loss to Mosinee.

Unfortunately before things started clicking, it was an offensive struggle for the Raiders, who finished with 36 turnovers and made just three of 18 shots from the field in the first half, which ended with Mosinee leading 24-7.

Mosinee started the second half with a 9-2 run to go up 33-9, but a mid-range shot by Hraby finally seemed to give Medford a jumpstart on the offensive end. Kraemer, who set a career-high with 11 points, converted a three-point play with 10:35 to go and Rau slipped behind a defender for two and Rudolph was the next Raider to get a three-point play and she sank two more free throws to cut Mosinee’s lead to 37-21 with 8:41 to go.

Baskets by Kraemer and Bryn Fronk scored to trim the lead to 40-25 with five minutes left, which wound up being as close as Medford got.

The Raiders actually wound up shooting better from the field than the Indians. Medford hit 13 of 41 shots for a 31.7% success rate. Mosinee was 18 of 63 (29%). But Mosinee outscored Medford 15-3 from 3-point range and the 24-7 edge in points off turnovers was too much to overcome. Medford outrebounded the Indians too, 38-33.

Rudolph had a 10-point, 14-rebound double-double in her final game at Raider Hall. Kraemer had six boards to go with her 11 points.

Hraby scored four points. Fronk had two points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals in her last home game. Pilgrim had a bucket off a hustle rebound by Kraemer late in the game and had three rebounds of her own. Rau had two points and two steals. Ella Daniels made two free throws in the last minute. Madison Clarkson had three rebounds and two assists.

Mosinee wrapped up second place in the GNC at 10-2 and got 15 points from Taelyn Jirschele along with seven rebounds, five assists and five steals. Kaitlyn Selle added 10 points.

Medford ended 4-8 in league play.

Crandon 45, Medford 23

On Thursday, Medford held Crandon’s leading scorer, Mara Stamper, to five points, but senior guard Holly Palubicki picked up the slack, scoring 22 points to nearly outscore the Raiders herself in the Cardinals’ 45-23 non-conference win.

Palubicki drilled three 3-point shots and scored 13 of her points in the first half, when the Cardinals jumped out to a 23-8 lead.

Medford’s offense improved somewhat in the second half and continued to make Crandon work to score. But the Cardinals held a 19-15 scoring edge in the half to continue their fine season.

Rudolph scored seven points to lead Medford, Fronk and Kraemer scored six apiece, Daniels hit a second-half 3-pointer and Rau added a free throw.

The following night Crandon secured a share of the Northern Lakes Conference title with Wabeno-Laona by beating Florence 50-27. The Cardinals finished the regular season 22-1.