WIAA DIV. 3 BOYS SOCCER - Raiders force OT, but can’t get to shootout in their upset bid

WIAA DIV. 3 BOYS SOCCER

The ninth-seeded Medford Raiders played the 80-minute game they needed Thursday to give themselves a chance at pulling off the biggest upset of the WIAA Division 3 boys soccer tournament.

But with regulation ending in a scoreless tie, that meant 20 more minutes of overtime play before the Raiders could take the game into a shootout. Top-seeded Lakeland finally broke through with Marshall Holmquist goals in each of the 10-minute overtime periods and won the regional semifinal match 2-0.

Lakeland won again Saturday, beating fifth-seeded Seymour 2-1, to improve to 16-1-2 and advance to sectional play late this week. Medford’s year ended at 1-13-3.

“Man, we played our best soccer in the last two weeks of the season,” Medford head coach Adam Derr said. “It’s unfortunate we couldn’t pull it together earlier. But I’m extremely proud of the guys for the effort they showed. They didn’t give up. They fought until the end.”

The Great Northern Conference champions beat Medford 2-0 and 5-0 in the regular season. It was after the 5-0 loss on Oct. 10 where the Raiders’ season took a positive turn.

In this matchup, Lakeland, not surprisingly, had a big edge in possession and offensive pressure. But the Raiders held up well. Lakeland took 36 shots, including 22 on goal, but Derr said the lack of high-quality shots was just what Medford had hoped for.

“(Goal keeper) Cale Schulz was busy,” Derr said. “Though they did have a lot of shots, I wouldn’t say they had a lot of good chances. Similar to what we’ve done for much of the season, we forced them into taking a lot of long shots. Cale had a handful of times where he had to make a really nice save.”

Medford knew penetrating Lakeland’s defense wasn’t going to be easy. Derr said he came away even more impressed with the T-Birds after this third meeting of the season. Medford had two shots, neither of which was actually on goal.

“Their defense is astonishing,” Derr said.

Offensively, Lakeland finally broke the tie 2:09 into the first overtime period. The T-Birds controlled the ball on their right side and, eventually, the T-Birds’ top scorer, Dominic Gironella, sent a centering pass that was just missed being deflected by the Raiders and found Holmquist, who put his straight-on shot from 24 yards into the upper right corner.

Holmquist had two more shots in the first overtime. Schulz made a difficult save on a close shot at 84:50 and Holmquist’s breakaway chance 50 seconds later went high.

Not even a minute into the second overtime, at 90:55, Gironella attacked from the left side and was able to slip the ball to Holmquist, who hit the upper right corner again. Schulz’s last save prevented the T-Birds from tacking on a breakaway goal with 40 seconds left.

Derr said Medford found out on game day it was going to be a bit short on depth due to illness. During the game, the Raiders lost Lucas Mahner and Keagan Gehrke. Ethan Emmerich was cramping at the end and Michael Meyer and Beck Mayrer were fighting through some pain as well late in the game.

“One hundred minutes of soccer is a lot to ask against a quality opponent,” Derr said. “We have talked all year and talked a lot during the week about putting 80 full minutes together. We put 80 minutes together Thursday. The extra 20 minutes just proved to be a little too much.”

While Medford was overall a young team at the varsity level, the Raiders still say goodbye to six seniors after Thursday’s loss, Meyer, Schulz, Anthony Seidel, Grant Neubauer, Dominic Fennell and Jason Scott. The returning players hope to carry the late momentum in the off-season and the fall of 2025.

“Hopefully next year we’ll start the season a little faster and not have as many growing pains,” Derr said.

Medford is scheduled to host the sectional final match at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The Lakeland/Shawano winner will play the Osceola/Rice Lake winner in that match.