Gierl’s big half powers Raiders to 4th straight win

The scoreboard said the Medford Raiders led their non-conference boys basketball game with Merrill by two at halftime Tuesday at Raider Hall, but the home team felt their play said otherwise.

That changed in the second half, where Charlie Gierl, in his second game back from a lengthy layoff, scored all 21 of his points and the Raiders never gave up their lead while securing a 62-51 win.

The victory was Medford’s fourth straight and got the Raiders to 5-7 as they hit the midway point of their regular season.

“I think coach (Ryan) Brown and all the coaching staff has felt the last couple of weeks that the guys are ready to break through a little bit of a threshold,” said Garett Shipman, who served as Medford’s head coach. Brown is taking some time away this week after his wife Kristyn gave birth to the couple’s fifth child, a daughter. “There’s a couple of things they need to become believers in a little bit, like taking care of the ball. At the end, that was a big step for these guys, just knowing we have the lead, let’s play with the lead, let’s finish the game and let’s get out of here and they did a great job with that.”

Gierl played the role of closer, hitting five 3-point shots in his big second half, and also aggressively getting to the rim when opportunities presented themselves. Medford’s most physical player missed six games after suffering a concussion at Mosinee on Dec. 8 and has led the Raiders in scoring in both games he’s played in since his return.

“It feels really good to be back,” Gierl said. “It’s been tough sitting at home, watching the team play. You really want to play. It’s good to be back, back at it and playing with the team again.”

Gierl scored Medford’s first seven points of the second half and Tanner Hraby made two free throws to extend its 27-25 halftime lead to 36-28 a little more than two minutes in. For a lengthy stretch, Merrill answered every attempt Medford made to try to create separation.

Gierl’s third triple of the half rattled around the rim and dropped to make it 4436 and, after Merrill’s EJ Weix got a bucket at the rim, Nick Steliga knocked down his third 3-pointer of the night to make it 4738. Freshman Tyson Ott answered with a triple for Merrill.

Brayden Balciar got a runner in the lane to drop and Hraby sank a 3 to put Medford up 52-41 with just under nine minutes to go, but Merrill made one more run, getting a Sam Reimann hoop, a 3-pointer from Carter Baade and the last score of Weix’s 17-point night to pull within 52-48 with six minutes to go.

Gierl then worked off a Hayden Koester screen and drilled a top of the key 3 with 5:41 left that started the Raiders’ knockout punch.

“The first half was rough,” Gierl said. “I was forcing shots. In the second half, I was just coming off screens. The team was doing a really good job of getting stops on D and we built some momentum. We got good shots, open shots in range and rhythm.”

The dagger came with 2:13 left when Medford chewed nearly a minute off the clock, thanks to an offensive rebound by Steliga, and got a wide-open 3 from Gierl, which he buried from the left corner to make it 62-48.

“It was open so I was like, I might as well just shoot it,” Gierl said.

“You can still see it out there that he hasn’t played for awhile,” Shipman said. “A little bit of newborn fawn stuff happening with turnovers and stumbling over his feet, things he does not normally do. He’s still getting back into the groove, but he feels good. Physically feels good, he has his stamina. He’s going to keep getting better as the year goes on.”

Hraby finished with 18 points for Medford, Steliga had seven points in the win and Brayden Balciar gave the Raiders some good minutes and six points before he turned his ankle and left the game with 5:21 left. Owen Stockwell have five points, including a game-opening 3 and Koester hit a 3. Logan Gubser got a first-half rebound bucket.

In that first half, Medford dug out of an early 7-3 hole and led most of the way, but Merrill (6-7) got several offensive rebounds, Weix, in particular, got to the rim and the Raiders had moments where they just couldn’t seem to keep a firm grip on the basketball.

“Everything Merrill did in the first half is exactly what we wanted to do,” Shipman said. “Some of that has to do with them being stronger than we are, but truthfully in the first half, they outworked us. They just did. It was pretty clear they were the aggressors in the first half and we were on our heels. I told the guys at halftime it was a minor miracle that we were up two. The game didn’t have a feel like we were up two. We really felt like we were getting manhandled a little bit.”

Despite Merrill’s 14 offensive boards, Medford still wound up with an overall 37-35 rebounding edge. Gierl had 10 rebounds to complete a double-double, Hraby had nine rebounds and Koester had six. Steliga had six assists, Hraby had five and Koester had four.

Though they’ve been at it for two months, it is worth noting the season is only halfway done and the Raiders like the trajectory they’re now on heading into Friday’s Great Northern Conference rematch at Lakeland, a team that beat them 57-53 in the season opener Dec. 1. The Raiders host Menomonie Monday in non-conference play before getting GNCleading Mosinee at Raider Hall Jan. 26.

“In practice we’ve been working really hard,” Gierl said. “Coach has been talking about it. We have to really be tough mentally going through it. If we can build momentum, we should be good and have a good game against Lakeland.”

“We took some steps with some things,” Shipman said. “I know coach Brown is going to be a little crazy about some of the defensive stuff. The good news with that it’s not like we played a perfect game and feel like that’s the best we could do. There’s a lot of stuff to clean up, a lot of room for growth yet with this team.”