MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL - Raiders rally at Antigo; OT steal secures win over Hodags

MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL

The Medford Raiders hit three 3-point shots right off the bat Tuesday, went ice cold for the rest of the first half and then turned to their defense and rebounding to provide energy for a second-half comeback that took down host Antigo 59-51.

The Raiders trailed by 14 late in the first half and were still down by 12 at the break. But it only took them seven minutes to regain the lead in the second half and they never lost it again.

The win pulled Medford into a secondplace tie with Rhinelander in the Great Northern Conference. Both teams are 7-2 with three games to play and trail 8-1 Mosinee by a game. Lakeland is a halfgame behind the Raiders and Hodags at 7-3 and visits Rhinelander this Friday. Rhinelander also goes to Mosinee yet on Feb. 16 before ending the season by hosting Medford on Feb. 22.

Nick Steliga hit two 3s around a Hayden Koester triple to shoot Medford out to a 9-4 lead, but the fired-up Red Robins (28, 5-15) took over at that point with one of their best shooting stretches of the season. Defensively, they set up a boxand- one, rotating defenders who chased around Tanner Hraby, who was held to four points in the half. The Raiders couldn’t break the zone with their outside shooting, but Conner Klingbeil’s score with four seconds left in the half made it 31-19 and gave the Raiders a jolt going into locker room.

After the break, in what Medford head coach Ryan Brown called a 10 for defensive effort, the Raiders got a spark offensively with a long 3 from Hraby and a rare 3 from Carson Carbaugh to get the deficit to single digits. A rebound basket by Koester followed by a great play by Logan Gubser got Medford within 37-33. Gubser hustled back on defense and got a clean steal to break up a two-on-one chance for the Robins. He passed the ball ahead to Klingbeil, who missed at the rim, but Gubser was there for the putback for his only points of the game.

Hraby soon followed with a 3 to make it 37-36. Steliga’s baseline score with 11:03 left put the Raiders in the lead at 38-37 and was followed by Owen Stockwell’s score with another offensive rebound. Hraby then got another stickback after Carbaugh’s steal. Koester’s offensive rebound led to a Klingbeil 3 and Hraby was fouled after getting a steal. His free throws capped an 18-0 run that made it 47-37 with 7:16 left. Antigo only got as close as seven the rest of the way.

Hraby finished with 23 points after his quiet start. Koester had nine points for Medford, while Stockwell and Steliga added eight each. Klingbeil scored five and Carbaugh chipped in with four.

Luke Bastle led Antigo with 13 points, while Gus Schluesser and Javon Bussey hit double figures with 12 and 10 points.

The Raiders host Northland Pines in GNC play Friday at 7:15 p.m. and then face another challenging matchup with La Crosse Central. The Riverhawks, who are 4-0 against Medford teams the past two seasons, host Saturday’s varsity matchup at 4:45 p.m. Medford hosts an old friend, head coach Paul Henrichs and his Altoona Railroaders, Tuesday at 7:15 p.m. in another non-conference game.

Raiders 57, Hodags 55

Six days after taking down Mosinee, the Raiders got another big GNC win at Raider Hall Thursday outlasting Rhinelander 5755 in overtime in a tightly-contested battle.

Hraby carried the offense with 36 points, but Carbaugh had the play of the game in overtime stealing an inbound pass intended for Hodag sophomore Devon Feck, who had burned Medford with three late 3s in the second half, and taking the ball the other way for a layup with 28 seconds left that broke a 55-55 tie.

“I was just in position,” Carbaugh said. “I saw (Seth Nofftz) throw it and I just jumped it. Perfect timing.”

“That was huge. Play of the game easily,” Hraby said. “That’s awesome. That’s what he does though. In practice, he’s always in the passing lanes and it showed right there. It was just perfect timing.”

“The biggest play of the game was obviously Carbs, tie game, being able to get in the passing lane,” coach Brown said. “We’ve talked a lot about that this week of not allowing ball reversal. We were letting it happen too easily. He had the play of the game with that steal and finish.”

The defensive efforts of both teams turned the game into a half-court grinder for the most part, which wasn’t unexpected for these rivals. Medford never trailed in the second half, but Rhinelander made two big comebacks in the half. First, the Hodags erased a 30-20 Medford lead, forged behind 3s hit by Koester and Hraby after Medford led 24-20 at the half, to eventually tie the game at 40-40 with 7:30 left, following eight straight points from their senior sharp shooter Will Gretzinger.

The second comeback wasn’t as big, but it was clutch. Medford led 47-43 going into the final minute of regulation, but Feck hit a tough contested 3 from the right corner with 37 seconds left then, after Hraby got to the rim off a sideline inbound play and scored with 24 seconds left, Feck was able to shot fake and sidestep his way to an open 3 that he rolled in with 12 seconds left to tie it at 49-49. Rhinelander’s tough defense prevented Medford from getting off a shot before time expired, sending the game to overtime.

Steliga scored the first basket of the four-minute overtime on a little baseline floater, but Feck hit two free throws to tie it with 2:34 left. Hraby then hit the last of his seven 3s, draining an open look from just left of the circle thanks to screens from Steliga and Koester.

“I remember coming off the double screen and I turned and nobody was near me so I shot it. The two screeners set two good screens and got me open,” said Hraby, who was seven of 13 from 3-point range and 12 of 21 overall from the field. “It’s nice when a couple shots fall early and then it gives you confidence as you go. When I was open I had the confidence and it went in tonight.”

“I thought a lot of other guys got good looks, they just weren’t falling,” Brown said. “Thankfully for us, Tanner, even with all of the pressure they put on him, had 36. We needed every single one of them. His teammates are giving him screens, they’re getting him the ball in better positions than they were early in the year, giving him good passes, finding him when he’s open, opening lanes for him to drive.”

Evan Shoeder scored inside for Rhinelander, the Hodags got a stop and then Truman Lamers scored inside to give the Hodags a 55-54 lead with 58 seconds left. Hraby was fouled on a drive to the basket and made one of two free throws to tie it with 44.6 seconds left. The Hodags got ball into the frontcourt and called timeout with 33.4 seconds left, setting up an inbound play from in front of their bench, but Carbaugh foiled it.

Nofftz missed a 3-pointer and Carbaugh run the race to the long rebound in the corner, getting the ball to Hraby, who was fouled with 5.5 seconds left.

“It just comes off the rim and you have to want the ball,” Carbaugh said. “You just have to be the first one there to get it.”

Hraby missed the bonus free throw, giving Rhinelander one last shot. Out of a timeout with 4.0 seconds left, the Hodags inbound pass from nearly three-quarters court was deflected by Steliga and all Rhinelander could get out of it was a desperation heave by Feck at the buzzer that wasn’t close.

“That one feels good,” Hraby said. “Another big conference win, gets us tied for second with them. Now we’re just hoping for a Mosinee loss and then hopefully we can go (to Rhinelander) and beat them again. They played hard. We knew they were going to come and play hard, come in to win and they did. You have to give them credit. We just made one more shot than them, really.”

Steliga scored eight points for Medford and added four rebounds. Carbaugh, who came in averaging just over a point per game, scored five and had six rebounds, three assists and three steals. Conner Klingbeil had four points, Koester had three and Logan Gubser had one.

Feck finished with 18 points and Gretzinger had 13 for Rhinelander.

Hraby had eight rebounds and three steals. Stockwell didn’t score and had three rebounds. Two nights after he had 14 rebounds in a loss at Wausau West, Brown said Stockwell’s contributions Thursday couldn’t be overlooked.

“Owen did a couple huge things,” Brown said. “One, he was there in help defense and walled up really well. Most of the game we smashed down pretty hard to at least make it tough for Feck and Shoeder to score. Stocks was affecting shots. Then between him and everyone else we were just scrambling to try to get in there. They probably beat us on the boards (38-30) but at the same time I felt like we were fighting for everything we got. When we needed them, we got them.”

Also big was Medford’s ability to handle the ball against some aggressive trapping from the Hodags down the stretch.

“Early in the year we probably would’ve been in a lot of trouble,” Brown said. “It’s something we work on at least a couple of times a week where we go six-on-five, just trapping. Honestly, we did so good that we had a couple of times if we just would’ve looked under the hoop we had a layup and we could’ve put the game away. But it was a really good job of guys coming to the ball, keeping their composure and being strong when a team is trying to be aggressive and get steals.”