New era set to begin for Medford’s boys soccer team

MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER PREVIEW

A lot has changed for Medford’s boys soccer team since the Raiders had their 2022 WIAA Division 3 state dreams dashed in a penalty-kick shootout by rival Rhinelander in a sectional semifinal shootout last October.

The loss of about 90% of the varsity roster from last year is obviously the key thing that stands out, but a head coaching change, with Adam Derr taking over for Nathan Bilodeau after his four excellent seasons at the helm, isn’t a small deal either.

It’s about as fresh of a start as a team can have at the start of a new school year. While there are a lot of unknowns, the Raiders believe there is talent to work, the transition process is going well in its early stages and it’s time to see what this group can do.

The first chance to do that comes tonight, Thursday, when Medford visits New London for a 6:30 p.m. non-conference contest. Great Northern Conference play then comes knocking with a trip to defending sectional champion Rhinelander on Tuesday and a visit from Northland Pines for the 7 p.m. home opener on Aug. 31.

“We’re definitely excited,” said Derr, whose most recent coaching experience was with clubs in the eastern US before he and his wife moved to the area about a year ago. “You never really know what you’ve got until you get a look at the competition. I think that’s one of the biggest issues is that I don’t know what we’re going up against. I think one of our weaknesses is I don’t know the other teams. Because we are a young team without a lot of varsity experience, the boys also don’t know.

“I think getting that first game under our belt and seeing what the competition looks like will kind of relax everybody.”

The Raiders went 13-2-4 overall last fall in the program’s best-ever season, record-wise, and will carry the title of defending GNC champion into the year after their 7-1-2 mark in league play. The Raiders won their regular-season shootouts with Rhinelander and Lakeland and, after an unexpected 1-0 loss to Pines in the regular-season finale, came back with a dominant start to the WIAA tournament with wins of 11-0 over Antigo and 4-0 over Mosinee.

They had a 2-0 lead over Rhinelander, but the Hodags rallied to tie it before halftime and then ended Medford’s threeseason run of shootout wins.

Before Derr’s hiring in July, the team’s senior captains said the team tried to stay ready as best as it could while enduring a lengthy wait to see who would be their new leader.

“We were just trying to keep disciplined, staying active in the off-season so when a coach did come we were ready,” Aidan Ball said. “We were all just getting touches on the ball during the winter.”

“We were doing our conditioning,” Alex Gonzalez said. “Captains practice really helped. We did that on Sundays.”

Practice officially started on Aug. 14 and Derr said the first week went as well as could be expected, highlighted by the annual scrimmage with soccer alumni on Thursday evening.

“It’s a good group of guys,” Derr said. “They’re all smart. They’ve been listening. They’re all working hard. I’ve been impressed. It’s only been a week. So far things are going well.”

“There is a lot of potential for improvement,” Ball said.

“We have a lot of good, solid players though,” Adyn Gripentrog said.

Gripentrog is the returning veteran who played the most with the varsity last year. His offensive skills improved as the year went on and he showed Thursday he’s still getting better.

“He’s a smart player, he’s got some moves,” Derr said. “We just have to get him to shoot the ball. He’s got a good right foot and good left foot so you can put him on either wing. You can put him in the middle. I think that’s one of the nice things about the majority of the team is we are really versatile. A lot of players can play a lot of different positions. So that will help.” The scrimmage helped Derr start to shape some ideas of who will play where. He said he plans to use the same formation the Raiders are used to. There just will be tweaks as to how they play from it.

“There were some good players on that alumni team,” Derr said. “I went back and looked at the tape and we did some good things. The first 15 minutes looked good and then they scored a couple of goals and we kind of backed off a little bit and the rest of the first half was played in our defensive end. But in the second half, we looked a little bit stronger offensively and we took it to them a little more, got a couple more shots on goal. I think we looked pretty solid.”

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“I thought it was good for the first time we were all together,” Ball said. “We had good moments. We had chances to score which is good.”

“We did better than I thought we would,” Gonzalez said.

Derr sees Medford being able to adequately re-stock the midfield areas the Raiders were so strong in a year ago, starting with the captains.

“Alex, he’s going to play our center back. He organizes the whole defense,” Derr said. “Adyn will kind of bounce between an outside mid and a center mid depending on the game and how things are going. Aidan Ball is going to be one of our strong center midfielders.”

Junior Michael Meyer, who was part of the varsity rotation last fall, is another center midfielder Medford will depend on. On the outside, junior Dominic Fennell is back after lettering last year and a newcomer, Dayne Jacobson, is going to add some speed. Derr mentioned sophomores Oliver Koffler, Ethan Emmerich and Keegan Neitzel as candidates as well.

The Raiders are still looking at striker candidates. Grant Neubauer, a junior who lettered last year, could be one of Medford’s scoring threats up top. Senior Gaige Ingersoll moves up to the varsity and junior Jason Scott got some shots off during the scrimmage.

“We have a lot of good, solid players. We just have to put it together yet,” Gripentrog said.

The goal keeper position needs to be filled with the loss of All-GNC performer Jake Dassow and, to start the season, juniors Cale Schulz and Anthony Seidel are battling for the spot.

“Both of them are interesting prospects,” Derr said. “They have different things to work on but they both can do the job. It’s kinda fun because the previous coach and (assistant coach) Tanya Tessmann both said Cale just seems to be in the right spot. When we were having practice last week, I said the exact same thing about Anthony. That’s what we need.”

The backline of defense in front of the keeper will feature senior letter winner Spencer Rau, senior Pablo Marquez and a solid sophomore in Nathan Schuld, who could both play middle or outside. Derr said sophomore Lucas Mahner also showed flashes in the scrimmage and should get his varsity experience.

“He played pretty good,” Derr said. “Overall I was really impressed with him going out there and giving it to those guys, especially with the speed they had on the outside.”

“I think we’ll figure out the defense,” Ball said. “We just have to work on communication between the defense and the defensive midfield so we know who’s covering what and marking the runs.”

Some of the 18 players listed on the varsity roster will be getting JV minutes as well as there are just two dozen players out for soccer at this point.

In the GNC, Rhinelander and Lakeland tied for second place a year ago, four points behind Medford at 6-2-1 and they are programs fans of GNC soccer expect to be good each year. The T-Birds bring back 2022 co-Offensive Player of the Year Yaroslav Myshchyshyn, but took some pretty significant graduation hits around him. Rhinelander also lost seven players who earned some kind of All-GNC mention, including co-Defensive Player of the Year Charlie Heck. Along with New London, Medford will see potential playoff opponents Rice Lake, Waupaca and Baldwin-Woodville during the regular season. Rice Lake lost the sectional final to Rhinelander in a shootout.