September 16, 2015 at 3:22 p.m.
An axe to grind
Rhinelander, Lakeland to play inaugural Northwoods Axe trophy game Friday night
An axe to grind
When the schools' football teams meet on the gridiron Friday night they will - for the first time - be playing for something that symbolizes the rivalry.
The Northwoods Axe will be on the line when the two teams descend on Rhinelander's Mike Webster Stadium in a game that will count toward the Great Northern Conference standings. Sister newspapers The Northwoods River News in Rhinelander and The Lakeland Times in Minocqua are sponsoring the event.
The idea of establishing a trophy game has been discussed by the two schools for a couple of years and they were able to solidify the details ahead of Friday night's contest.
"We've been talking about it for a year or two, since I came to Rhinelander, about having a trophy game with Lakeland," said RHS activities director Brian Paulson. "Obviously it's a rivalry game. We're very close by and we wanted to add something to it, add some kind of trophy."
For Lakeland, establishing a rivalry game with Rhinelander made sense for two reasons. First, before this year, Lakeland never had a trophy to play for. Second, Rhinelander is its closest conference football rival in terms of geography.
"Now there is something (physical) to play for, so I think that's just going to heighten the intensity of this rivalry," Lakeland Activities Director Don Scharbarth said.
"Any time you play a school that's 25-30 miles down the road, that's going to be a big rivalry. And we lost those (other opponents). We don't have that game with Tomahawk anymore, and we don't have that game with (Northland Pines) anymore. Now our neighbor down the road happens to be Rhinelander, and they have as much pride in their community and the Hodag as we have in our community and the T-Bird. It's a really neat atmosphere for high school football."
Both coaches are also on board with the rivalry game.
"I think it's going to be a great thing for both schools and the communities for years to come," Lakeland head coach Brent Luebke said.
"Because of proximity with Lakeland, it's something that our kids want," Ferge added. "They know each other. We just want to win, period and I know they're able to do that."
While Rhinelander and Lakeland have only been conference mates since 2010, their rivalry started long before then, Scharbarth explained.
"We used to scrimmage Rhinelander," said Scharbarth, who was Lakeland's head football coach from 1993-2010. "I think back to 1996. That was our team that went 9-0 in the conference and we were 10-0 and ranked No. 1 in the state at one point. That's also probably Rhinelander's best football team in modern times. I can remember it just started in the scrimmage. We did not play them during the regular season back then, we just scrimmaged them.
"Even back then, there was something about knowing that they were our bigger neighbors, the county seat and all that held with it, right down the road. Rhinelander was still looked at as the big town, the big city in Oneida County and we were this little dinky school. I always liked to take any edge I could get so I told them in Rhinelander's eyes we're Podunk. We're Podunk to them. It kind of started there, and we finally managed to fit them into our non-conference schedule once we became an independent."
Lakeland and Rhinelander started playing against each other non-conference in 2005, with Lakeland having the upper hand in most of those matchups. The one exception was 2006 in a classic played at Mike Webster Stadium. Lakeland advanced to the state semifinals in Division 3 that year while Rhinelander won four games, its best performance since 1994. Along the way, the two squads met up in a Week 8 epic in Rhinelander.
Several inches of snow blanketed the ground as the two teams turned in a heavyweight battle, trading punches with their power running games. Lakeland racked up 331 yards on the ground while Rhinelander's Jacob Schmidt, who went on to play running back at Northwestern University, had a three-touchdown night. Schmidt's final score and subsequent two-point conversion with 3:16 remaining in the fourth quarter gave the Hodags a 28-27 victory.
Ryan Kelly, who was the Hodag quarterback that night, recalls the field being so wet and sloppy from the snow that he had to change cleats at halftime.
"A lot of snow that game," he said. "I definitely wasn't going to be able to throw the ball, but throwing wasn't really in the offensive mold and really wasn't my best attribute either. It was a great matchup and knowing a lot of those guys from Lakeland from playing basketball it was always a battle when we were playing them in football, basketball or baseball."
Rhinelander, of course, already has a long-standing rivalry game with Antigo. The two will meet in the 81st playing of the Bell Game Oct. 9 in Rhinelander. Why should the Hodags add another trophy game to their schedule? Why not, Paulson countered.
"Why not have another game," he asked. "If we want to get one going for basketball, why not? If we wanted to do one for tennis or cross country, if we thought it fit, why not? I think it's something that each game, it adds a little bit more excitement."
As for the trophy itself, the two schools will play for a stand-in trophy this Friday night and will have a permanent prize in place for next year's game scheduled for Sept. 16, 2016.
Scharbarth said, given time, the Axe Game could rival the Bell Game in terms of importance on the fall prep schedule.
"We know that it's going to take awhile for it to rival the Bell Game, but we're hoping that five to 10 years down the road that this axe is a coveted trophy, a memorabilia that kids get to run around the field with," he said. "I just think it's going to add to the Rhinelander-Lakeland game."
The River News and The Lakeland Times are sponsoring a banner that will be displayed at Friday night's contest and the trophy itself.
"A sincere thank you to The Lakeland Times and the Northwoods River News, just based on the fact that our local newspaper is sponsoring this contest, we know that we're going to get a lot of PR," Scharbarth said. "I think the more PR we get through the press the more people who would possibly think, 'Hey, I think I want to maybe go to a fish fry tonight and then go see this football game play out.'"
The trophy adds yet another layer to an already intriguing matchup. Rhinelander is 0-2 in the GNC while Lakeland is 0-1 The loser of Friday night's game would have a much more difficult time obtaining playoff eligibility. Rhinelander would have to win its final three games, should it lose Friday. Lakeland would have to win three of its next four. Additionally, there's the thread involving the relationship between Luebke and Ferge. The two coached together at Two Rivers and now face each other on opposite sidelines.
"I think it's going to be a great thing," Luebke said. "We have a great love for one another as friends. We built one program together, it was a lot of he and I. He was the first coach I asked to coach with me, and he had a great dedication to the weight room. Building up, he was my defensive coordinator then he went to the freshman level to set the discipline structure of what our program was going to be. He helped all the way."
"I want him to do well as well, not (Friday) maybe," Ferge told the River News prior to the teams' non-conference matchup in Week 1, won by Lakeland 53-7. "We care about each other and we've helped each other out a lot with our weight program, the offense we run, how we run practices."
"That just adds a whole other element to it," Scharbarth said of the relationship between the coaches. "Just watching from the sidelines in game one, here we have at Lakeland the former head coach at Two Rivers High School playing against his top assistant at Two Rivers when he was the head coach. Here these guys are opening up against each other. Our head coach's first game at Lakeland is against his former assistant coach. That's a story in itself. And now you throw the rivalry in there. Rhinelander's kind of had their way on the basketball court with us, and don't think that when we play them on the football field that we don't know that. So we're playing for that also, so it's a big game."
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. in Rhinelander.
Lakeland Times editor Jim Oxley contributed to this report from Minocqua. Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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