MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL - Raiders rebound after crushing defeat Friday at Mosinee

MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL

Unfortunately for the Medford Raiders, they’ll never be able to get back what should have been a crucial boys basketball victory at Mosinee Friday. But a 56-52 win at Altoona Tuesday helped put that lost opportunity in the rearview mirror.

Medford had nowhere near a 21-point lead in this one, but, after trailing the entire first half, the Raiders tore apart Altoona’s 2-3 zone in the first two-thirds of the second half to grab an eight-point lead. The Railroaders got it down to one, but Medford was able to lock it down with a couple of clutch defensive plays and just enough free throws to get to 10-8 overall.

“After Friday we were kinda down in the dumps,” said senior Charlie Gierl, who led all scorers Tuesday with 23 points. “But the coaches said we have to bounce back from that. We worked super hard in practice. We have to do things right in crunch time. There’s five minutes left in the game. We have to just pull it together and win the game.”

“Staying above .500 was our big goal,” said senior Hayden Koester, who scored 10 of his 14 points in the second half. “If we drop below .500, that’s playoff seeds right there. We know that we have to close games late and we pulled it together and did that today.”

An onslaught of seven Altoona 3pointers and continued struggles for Medford with defensive rebounding put the Raiders in a 33-26 halftime hole. But after trailing by as much as 11 early on, the Raiders started to find gaps in Altoona’s zone, working the high post and short corners, rather than trying to shoot over it.

Working in the high post, Koester scored the first seven points of the second half to pull Medford even. Then Gierl went to work in the lane, getting two free throws and a three-point play, then going outside to hit a 3-pointer and finishing his run with a score from the low block to put Medford on top 43-38. Altoona tied it, then Jason Woller and Gierl hit key backto- back 3s and Nick Krause cut backdoor and scored off a high post feed from Devin Dassow to open up a 51-43 edge.

“We got it into the high post in the first half, but we had some silly turnovers and we just weren’t hitting shots,” Medford head coach Ryan Brown said after leading the Raiders to victory where he played his high school ball. “We tried to get the ball into Chuck a little bit and that got him going. Obviously Chuck had a big second half for us. Guys just seemed to roll with confidence. They had to keep switching their defense and we did a good job of doing what we needed to do with each one.”

“After Onalaska and Rhinelander we realized how important it was to be ready for zone defenses,” Koester said. “That’s what we’ve been doing these weeks in practice. It really prepared us for this game and Mosinee to be able to attack any zone people throw at us.”

After the Railroaders, coached by 2002 Medford graduate Paul Henrichs, crept within 53-52, Dassow, a freshman, sank two clutch bonus free throws with 1:28 left. He then got a big defensive rebound and was fouled with 1:01 left. He missed those free throws, but made up for it, foiling a backdoor cut and stealing the pass on Altoona’s next offensive possession. Gierl then missed two free throws to add to the tension, but Koester came up with a steal. Gierl’s layup attempt was blocked from behind, but Altoona’s Owen Gunderson missed a tying 3-point attempt, the ball went out of bounds to Medford and Koester’s free throw with 7.3 seconds left finally allowed the Raiders and their fans to exhale.

“The guys did great,” Brown said. “We have to make our free throws. That kept it too tight. But getting the stops we got, we struggled rebounding throughout the game, but we were able to get the ones late that we needed to. And we had a couple of great plays. Devin missed two free throws but he came right back, they ran a little backdoor set and he got the steal. Just little things that helped us seal it really with our defense when we weren’t making our free throws.”

Dassow scored six points for Medford, Peyton Ried and Nick Krause scored five apiece and Woller finished with three.

Altoona (7-10) was led by Gunderson’s 19 points. He had three 3s, including two of Altoona’s seven in the first half. Graysen Becker had nine points, including a thunderous two-handed slam dunk following a Medford turnover late in the first half.

Medford is scheduled to host Rice Lake for another difficult non-conference challenge Saturday. Game times have been changed to 4 p.m. for the JV games and 5:30 p.m. for the varsity game. The Raiders return to Great Northern Conference Tuesday when they host Antigo for Senior Night.

Mosinee 62, Medford 59

What looked like it would be one of the season’s most satisfying victories turned into a devastating gut punch Friday when the Raiders lost a 21-point lead in the last eight minutes and lost at Mosinee 62-59.

In position to take control of the Great Northern Conference title chase with four league games left, the Raiders instead saw the Indians finish the game on a 25-1 run to complete a sweep of the season series. Medford and Rhinelander are now tied atop the GNC standings at 6-2 while Mosinee is right back in the thick of it at 5-2.

“I thought we played great in the first 30 minutes,” Brown said. “We did exactly what our game plan was. We tried to be physical with them in the post, double hard and really battle for rebounds. For the first 30 minutes, I think we won those battles. I think we took care of the ball, even though we had 10 turnovers for the game. Through that first 30 minutes, we maybe had five or four. We did everything we came in here wanting to do, knowing what it would take and how good of a game we would have to play to win.”

Getting that win, however, required Medford to do the things that gave it a 5837 lead for a full 36 minutes. Mosinee got a couple of shots to fall, aggressively got back to doing what it does best in rebounding and attacking the basket and, down the stretch, the Raiders just could not stop the Indians from scoring.

Three days after struggling on the road against a strong Onalaska squad, the Raiders looked like a different team in building their big lead. The first half went back and forth as each team answered little runs by the other until Medford broke away from a 23-23 tie. Krause, Ried, Woller and Koester all sank 3-point shots and then, after a Mosinee turnover with 5.2 seconds left, Gierl went from one end of the court to the other and got a midrange runner at the buzzer to fall to give the Raiders a 37-30 halftime lead.

Medford’s points of emphasis going into the game were achieved in the half as the Raiders had just three turnovers, had grabbed two-thirds of the defensive rebounds available to them and made eight of 21 3-point tries.

That 3-point success continued through the first 10 minutes of the second half as Medford hit five of its first seven attempts from long range. Krause made two, Gierl and Koester each added one and Woller’s 3-pointer from in front of Medford’s bench with just over eight minutes left gave Medford its biggest lead at 58-37.

“We want our kids to be patient, but yet still attack,” Brown said. “Our best attack is hitting slips and looking for open 3s. I thought we did a great job. They threw a zone on us and we did a great job adjusting to that. Just growth from Tuesday to (Friday), from Onalaska where we really struggled to finding the right guys and making some shots, was great.”

Mosinee got an inside score from Gavin Chmiel, then Medford had a strong possession that burned more than a minute but missed a shot in the lane. Mosinee’s rising sophomore star Brayden Reinke converted a three-point play on the either end and, even though it was still 5842 with 6:35 left, one could sense the momentum shifting.

After Krause’s free throw at the 6:06 mark, Reinke’s offensive rebound, Mosinee’s third of the possession, gave him an easy score. A hoop and 3-pointer by Mosinee’s other standout, Treve Stoffel, made it 59-49 with a long 3:57 still to play.

Medford missed a bonus free throw, Mosinee also missed one, but Stoffel got the rebound, leading to the key series in the comeback. Mitchell Michlig made one of two free throws, Reinke tracked down the miss and got the ball back to Michlig, who got to the rim off a shot fake and converted a three-point play to make it 5953. Mosinee then got a backcourt steal to make it 59-55 with 2:40 left.

Reinke scored twice to tie it, Stoffel scored with 35 seconds left to put Mosinee ahead and the 3-point magic from early in the game eluded Krause on three attempts in the last minute.

“In the last five minutes, give Mosinee credit,” Brown said. “They attacked the rim really hard and they beat us on the boards. Then we had some turnovers. Ultimately I think what happened was instead of staying patient in what we do, as they pressured up –– that’s usually when we can take advantage of teams with a slip –– we started to put our head down and dribble the ball. That’s when we turned the basketball over. Just staying solid and ripping the basketball, coming to the basketball. Maybe we ran out of some gas because you need to cut hard to get those slips late in the game. I just didn’t feel like we were making hard enough slips to be able to make them pay.”

Reinke finished with 28 points and 15 rebounds. Stoffel had 18 points and eight rebounds.

“In the first half, we were really banging with (Reinke), getting a body on him,” Brown said. “He is relentless. He doesn’t stop. Late, when they needed rebounds, he went hard to the boards and I thought maybe we lost a little of our discipline with five guys getting a body on five guys. Sometimes he just went up and got it. We were going up with him, but he just went higher.”

Krause led Medford with 16 points and eight rebounds. Koester had 14 points, five assists and three rebounds. Gierl had eight points and three assists and Will Daniels was three for four from the field and scored eight points. Woller had six points, Ried had five points and six rebounds and Dassow had a basket, six rebounds and four assists.

“I told the boys, we played 31 tremendous minutes, but we have to finish games to win them,” Brown said. “We got them to miss some shots, but you have to finish possessions.”

Nick Krause speed dribbles right past Mosinee defender Carson Balgord during the second half of Friday’s 62-59 loss in a battle of GNC title contenders. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS