Defense refuses to give in, picks up the offense in shutout win

MEDFORD 12, MERRILL 0

In week two, the offense grabbed the spotlight in Medford’s big non-conference win at Onalaska. Friday’s 12-0 win at Merrill in week three and the Great Northern Conference opener was all about the defense.

Taking more than half of its snaps on its end of the field, Medford’s defense excelled in pressure situations, holding the Blue Jays to just five first downs and 96 total yards to pitch its first shutout of the season. The work from that unit allowed a 62-yard touchdown run by Paxton Rothmeier on the third play of the game to stand as the go-ahead score until the Raiders finally got their counter play to break with a 42-yard scoring run from Evan Wilkins with 7:46 left that put it out of reach for Merrill’s struggling offense.

“With every stop it felt like their heads got lower on offense as ours got higher,” said senior linebacker Logan Kawa who, along with defensive end Cameron Bull, led the charge that held the Jays to 81 rushing yards, the vast majority of which came on three plays. “Even though our offense wasn’t doing good our defense thrived. It was a defensive game this week.”

“That’s one of those things, it’s a full team game,” Medford head coach Ted Wilson said. “Sometimes you rely on your offense to win and that was what happened last week. Sometimes you rely on your defense to win and that’s what happened against Merrill. Once you get those two things going together, then things should be easier going forward.”

It’s not that Medford’s offense didn’t move the ball. The Raiders piled up 358 rushing yards and 408 total yards, but a couple of turnovers and a plethora of penalties killed drives. Of Medford’s 13 penalties for 116 yards, six were middrive holding penalties that made it difficult to sustain those drives. That being said, Rothmeier’s big run came right af-ter a holding call and the Wilkins score came after Medford’s second procedure penalty on an 82-yard touchdown drive.

“We had a lot of plays that were positives then we had a lot of negative things happen,” Wilson said. “We got 17 first downs and almost 400 yards of total offense. Two turnovers didn’t help and the snap over our head on a punt didn’t help. Those are all things that we have to clean up. Going forward we can’t have those things happening constantly in games. It’s hard to win games like that.”

“That was a struggle, especially in the first half,” Rothmeier said. “A lot of mistakes, a lot of holding.”

On his 62-yard score, Rothmeier took the direct snap and went right where he immediately eluded a defender in the backfield. He made three more guys miss within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage before finding wide open space along the sideline.

“I don’t know, I just broke the first tackle, saw some room on the edge and I just sent her down and made a man miss and somehow got through there,” Rothmeier said.

“Paxton just made a great effort to make guys miss, broke away and scored,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t blocked particularly well.”

With a couple of Medford’s backs being dinged up by game’s end, Rothmeier, a junior, became the workhorse with ca-reer highs of 24 carries and 220 yards.

“A lot more (carries) than I expected with (Carson Carbaugh) getting hurt there in the second half, but I feel pretty good,” Rothmeier said. “I wasn’t mad.”

“Twenty-four carries for 220 yards, that’s a pretty good night,” Wilson said. “There weren’t a lot of zero or negative yardage carries. There were a couple, mostly in the first half. For the most part, he played very well. He has very good vision and does a good job of making the first guy miss. He has a few things to work on. Overall I thought he played well.”

The defensive tests started soon after the opening score.

A 23-yard run by Kaiden Henrich on the ensuing series got Merrill into Medford territory, but a pass breakup by Evan Paul on fourth down ended it. But Merrill linebacker Jax Hanson stripped Raider Charlie Gierl of the football and ran it back 35 yards to Medford’s six. Bull dropped Merrill quarterback Jacob Schmeltzer for a 4-yard loss on second and goal to help squash that threat, which ended when Owen Klussendorf recovered a fourth-down fumble on the four.

A 29-yard pass from Hank Crass to Gierl and a 26-yard Rothmeier run flipped the field, but Medford’s drive stalled. A Carbaugh interception went for naught and a high punt snap gave Merrill the ball on Medford’s 30, but the Raiders, again, stopped the Blue Jays after allowing just one first down.

Merrill’s Callum Wheeler started the second half with runs of 36 and 15 yards to give his team a first down on Medford’s 21, but the Raiders pushed Merrill back from there. The Raiders lost a fumble on the next snap, giving the ball right back to Merrill on the 28-yard line and, after one first down, the defense held on fourth down at the 22.

“We played hard,” Kawa said. “We fought. We got our backs on the line and just fought hard and kept them there. That’s really all that mattered. “

“I thought Cameron Bull and Logan Kawa played really, really well,” Wilson said of the defensive highlights. “I think just overall for the most part, everybody did their jobs. Evan Paul covered their top receiver very well. I just think for the most part the kids defensively really played well within the scope of the scheme. When you do the little things right and you do your job all the time, good things happen and that seemed to be what happened Friday.”

Medford’s clinching drive started from its 18 with 11:46 left. Rothmeier gained 14 yards on first down, then Braxton Weissmiller saved the drive by recovering a fumble on the second snap. Rothmeier had runs of 15 and 11 yards. Finally, Wilkins went around the right side and sprinted to Medford’s second touchdown.

“The second touchdown was blocked much better,” Wilson said. “Wilkins had to make one guy miss and he did.”

“That was going to go eventually,” Rothmeier said. “(Wilkins) has a burst.”

Wilkins had 46 yards on three carries, Gierl had seven carries for 32 yards in limited action and Carbaugh had 62 yards on 14 carries before tweaking an ankle though he did return to the game.

Medford’s defense allowed just 3.2 yards per rushing attempt and just 15 passing yards. Schmeltzer completed just two of 13 passing attempts.

Medford returns to Raider Field Fri- day for a GNC matchup with the 0-3 Lakeland Thunderbirds, who fell 33-0 to Mosinee in their league opener Friday. It’s the first road game for Lakeland, who also lost 23-7 to Wausau East and 7-0 to Tomahawk.

“They’ve got a nice little running game,” Wilson said. Their quarterback (Kort Meyer) is pretty athletic. They don’t look like they’re as athletic out at wide receiver as they have been in the past. It looks like they’re trying to run the ball and play a physical brand of football, kind of like they did last year.”

Last year, Medford won the regular season game in Minocqua 38-14 and then beat the T-Birds again at Raider Field in Level 1 of the WIAA Division 3 playoffs 36-14.

“It’s not going to get any easier,” Kawa said. “Everybody’s learning, everybody’s going week by week and there’s always a target on your back.”

“People are going to be fired up to play us,” Wilson said. “We’ve had that conversation with our kids. Since 2019 we’ve only lost three conference games total and two are to Mosinee. People are going to be circling us on their calendars. I’m sure Lakeland is no different. We have to find a way to match that intensity every week. Even though we’re the hunted instead of the hunter, we need to try to change our mindset to become the hunter.”

Elsewhere in league play Friday, Hayward visits Rhinelander in a matchup of 3-0 teams, Antigo is at Merrill and Ashland is at Mosinee.

Medford linebacker Logan Kawa (l.) and defensive end Cameron Bull smother Merrill ball carrier Kaiden Henrich, dropping him for no gain early in the third quarter of Friday’s 12-0 win. This play was the first after Medford lost a fumble and started one of several defensive stands by the Raiders deep in their own territory.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS