MEDFORD BOYS HOCKEY - Hodags win 5-3 in third-place game; teams meet again tonight
MEDFORD BOYS HOCKEY
Medford rebounded from a disastrous first game at the Merrill hockey tournament and put together a much better effort that fell just short Saturday in a 5-3 loss to the Raiders’ Great Northern Conference rival Rhinelander.
A pair of two-goal runs by the Hodags created the separation they needed to earn just their second win of the season. Rhinelander is 2-11 after losing to Northland Pines Tuesday. Medford fell to 2-14 after Saturday’s loss.
Fittingly, the two teams will play again at 7 p.m. tonight, Thursday, in Rhinelander in their GNC matchup for the season.
Three different Raiders found the net in Saturday’s game with Tucker Phillips getting the first one on an unassisted, short-handed breakaway chance 10:52 into the first period. That evened the game at 1-1 after Rhinelander’s Dylan Shefveland had scored 5:52 into the game with a Zach Edyvean assist. Shefveland scored again at the 13:36 mark of the first period off a Nate Cordy assist, capping a first period where the Hodags outshot the Raiders 9-4.
Hodag Drake Nelson made it 3-1 9:22 into the second, scoring off a Shefveland assist, but Medford quickly countered, getting the second goal of the season from Fischer Thums. He was assisted by Mason Harris.
The one-goal game got away from Medford, however, midway through the third period. Logan Leonard’s goal 5:28 in put Rhinelander back up by two and he scored again at 8:10 to put the game out of reach at 5-2. The Raiders did create some late pressure and got Cole Pernsteiner’s third goal of the year at the 11:08 mark.
Rhinelander finished with a 38-24 advantage in shots on goal. Talan Albers had 33 saves for the Raiders, while Asher Rivord had 21 saves for the Hodags. Medford had six power play chances but did not score. The Hodags killed two penalties.
Friday’s first round of the tournament did not go well at all for the Raiders, who were hit hard early and never recovered in a 12-0 loss to host East-Merrill United. The BlueJacks scored six goals in the first period and outshot the Raiders 39-14. Making things worse, the Raiders lost one of their most productive freshmen, Tanner Hubbard, to injury late in the first period.
Liam Zdroik got the home team’s first goal just 55 seconds in and Ryker Remington made it 2-0 at the 4:57 mark. The floodgates didn’t really open until Nicholas Bodner scored at 10:23. Zdroik scored 39 seconds later to make it 4-0 and Brody Klebenow and Parker Klebenow added goals at 15:01 and 16:39.
Remington and Kanin Jahnsk scored East-Merrill’s second-period goals. Jahnke, Connor Zdroik, Will Mroczenski and Jackson Pierce closed the scoring in the third.
Zach Pagel had four assists for East-Merrill and Pierce had three. Connor Burton got the shutout win with 14 saves.
Albers had 11 saves in each of the first two periods for Medford, while Jaxston Malzahn stopped five of nine shots he faced in the third period.
Medford will be back at home Tuesday when it hosts Northland Pines at 7 p.m. in GNC play.
Rails 4, Raiders 1
The Raiders got the first goal in their Jan. 7 home game with Spooner-Shell Lake, but that was all they wound up getting in a 4-1 non-conference loss to the Rails.
Both teams scored their first goals on power plays, but a short-handed goal from the Rails’ Jesse Morales was the tiebreaker 9:21 into the second period, then Owen Dernovsek got the crusher, scoring with 18 seconds left in the period to double the visitors’ lead to two at 3-1. Dernovsek also added an insurance goal 9:18 into the third period with an assist from Morales.
Spooner-Shell Lake outshot Medford 14-4 in the second period as the momentum shifted in that time.
Both teams were credited with five shots on goal in the first period. Medford’s power-play goal came at 7:31 as Cade Wellman got the puck to Jacob Doyle, who fired a shot from just inside the blue line. It hit the stick of Grady Crass, who deflected it past Rail goaltender Daulton Brummond.
It stayed 1-0 for almost 15 minutes of game time. Mason Sobralski’s unassisted power-play goal 5:43 into the second period tied it and set the stage for the Morales go-ahead short-hander, which was assisted by Dernovsek.
Albers had 26 saves for Medford, including 11 in the second period and 10 in the third. Brummond had to make 16 saves in the third period and got the win with 24 total saves.
