MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER - No goals in tie, but Raiders score big in shootout

MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER

The Medford Raiders started the new boys soccer season hoping for an offensive jolt. That hasn’t happened yet through three games, but when it came to a tie-breaking shootout Tuesday against Rhinelander in the teams’ Great Northern Conference opener, the Raiders confidently took care of business.

After 80 minutes of scoreless soccer, Medford ended the penalty-kick shootout in three rounds behind goals from Michael Meyer, Grant Neubauer and Dominic Fennell while goalkeeper Cale Schulz had one save and watched two other Hodag shots miss the net completely.

The tie left Medford 0-1-2 overall, but the Raiders did earn two points in the conference standings, while Rhinelander gets one. The Hodags are 0-1-1 overall early on. Both teams’ losses have come to New London.

Medford felt Tuesday was clearly the team’s best effort in its first three contests.

“We played much better tonight than we have in the first two games,” head coach Adam Derr said Tuesday. “We passed the ball much better. We still need to work on that final third and working that. I think everybody gets the jitters and we’re just not quite making the final pass and getting the final touch into the net.”

“I felt like we possessed a lot better than we have,” said Fennell, one of the team’s 2024 captains. “We had a lot more opportunities on offense, but we have to getshots in the back of the net. We have to get more shots.”

Neither team put a lot of shots on goal with Medford having a slight edge in scoring opportunities. Rhinelander is known for trying to sneak shooters in position through long passes, but Medford was ready for it.

“We tried to pressure the ball, not give them a good long ball and then made sure our defense dropped immediately when they got the ball,” Derr said. “I thought we did pretty well with that. There were one or two iffy chances but for the most part I thought our guys dropped back pretty well.”

The Raiders had a good chance almost eight minutes in when Meyer’s centering pass just missed the crashing Keegan Neitzel right in front of Hodag goalie Barak Rappley. Rappley made the biggest play of the first half at 37:10. Some good, quick passing by the Raiders gave Ethan Emmerich a one-on-one chance but his last touch went a little too far and Rappley slid into the ball and deflected it away before Emmerich got the last touch he needed to bury a shot.

Schulz’s big moment of regulation came at the 53:15 mark as he quickly reacted to a wellstruck header by Hodag Charlie Johnson off a Michael Schiek corner kick. Schulz dove to his left to stop Johnson’s attempt from getting inside the post.

“You have to give Cale credit for the diving save,” Derr said. “That was top corner, great save. We won the one penalty shootout that we had last year that we were in (with Northland Pines) and Cale looked pretty dominant in there again today.”

Medford had the better of it offensively in the last 20 minutes. At 61:40, the Raiders transitioned quickly from the defensive to the offensive end, giving Neubauer a shot that was deflected by Rappley over the net. The best chance came at the 63-minute mark as Fennell made a push from the right side and sent a centering pass that got by Emmerich but Neubauer was also there for what looked like an easy tap-in. But Hodag defender Karter Massey slid in out of nowhere to knock away the shot. The rebound went back to Neubauer, but by then he didn’t have a great angle and his second shot hit the side of the net.

Neubauer had a good look at 76:35 that sailed just past the upper right corner.

Medford won the coin toss for the shootout and chose to shoot second in each round. Schulz set the tone, diving to his right to stop Johnson’s opening shot. Rappley guessed Meyer would go right, but Meyer went left and hit the open net. After Massey’s shot to the right went high and wide, Neubauer did the same as Meyer, hitting a wide open left side.

When Asher Rivord’s shot to the left curled past the post, all Medford needed was one more goal to clinch the shootout win. Fennell did it by driving a shot through Rappley’s hands.

“It was awesome,” Fennell said. “I got the support of my teammates. I mean it was finishing as a team. That’s how I think of it as my goal, I think of it as a team goal.”

“Today we passed the ball much, much better,” Derr said. “We just have to keep doing that and working on the fundamentals –– trapping, passing, coming to the ball, moving, just the simple stuff.”

The Raiders expect another defensive battle today, Thursday, when they head to Northland Pines for a 4:30 p.m. start. In their two games last year, Medford won 1-0 on an own goal and then, after a 0-0 tie, won a shootout. The Raiders will be at Antigo Sept. 12.

Bulldogs 2, Raiders 1

Oswin Menez assisted on the tying goal and then headed in a corner kick by teammate Ryan Peters at the 57:44 mark to lift New London to a 2-1 non-conference win over Medford Thursday in the Raiders’ 2024 home opener.

The game was halted in the 68th minute due to lightning.

The Raiders weren’t able to generate much offensively against the Bulldogs, but they did hold a 1-0 for about 20 minutes in the first half. Neubauer angled a corner kick from the left side of Medford’s offensive formation past the New London goalkeeper for the Raiders’ goal just 7:48 in.

Medford had a good chance just before that at the six-minute mark, but the goalie made a highlight sliding save to reject what appeared to be an open look for Emmerich.

At the other end, Schulz did his best to keep New London off the board. Just 1:50 in, Schulz slid to stop a close shot by Menez. New London’s Daniel Patino got open while receiving the ensuing corner kick, but Schulz denied him at point-blank range.

Bulldog Klever Menez had two shots good shots stopped by Schulz. But at 27:28, the defense allowed Klever Menez to dribble through the middle of the field. His pass to the wing went awry, but Oswin Menez got control of the ball just before it went out of bounds, dribbled past a couple of Raiders and got the assist as Henry Auer knocked in the tying goal.

Oswin Menez had three more good opportunities in the first half, putting a direct kick just over the crossbar, having Schulz deflect a shot that hit the post and then hitting the upper corner of the goal.

“We struggled to trap the ball, and we couldn’t make a pass,” Derr said. “Give credit to their midfield, they were all over the place. If you can’t trap and you can’t pass you’re going to struggle in games and that’s the way we were against New London.”

Medford goalkeeper Cale Schulz dives to his right to stop the first shot of Tuesday’s shootout with Rhinelander, which was taken by Hodag Charlie Johnson. After the teams played to a 0-0 tie, Medford won the shootout 3-0 to earn two points in the conference standings. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS