February 6, 2017 at 3:38 p.m.
Revenge served cold
 Hodags shoot 31 percent, hold off Tomahawk 35-30
Revenge served cold
Instead, the Hodags were on upset alert again, trailing most of the night before rallying late in the second half for a 35-30 victory.
The Hatchets (7-9, 2-6 Great Northern) defeated Rhinelander 62-58 in Tomahawk Jan. 23 but slowed Friday's game down to a crawl in the half court as they built a lead as large as eight in the first half. Rhinelander (10-5, 6-3 Great Northern) finally turned up the pressure in the half court in the second half to wrest away control of the game.
"We just weren't playing. We were playing to not lose instead of playing to win, and that was the problem," RHS boys' basketball coach Derek Lemmens said. "We were just tight the whole game and we never really loosened up until finally when we added a little pressure. They kind of let the defense change our flow offensively. That's what defense can do and I think these guys are buying into that now. In Tomahawk, when nothing we going right, we didn't have that defense to fall back on and now, here, we did."
Tomahawk took only 29 shots all night. Part of the low total could be attributed to the 18 turnovers the Hodags forced defensively. Rhinelander needed it on a night where shots were not falling. The Hodags shot 31 percent (11 of 35) from the field and still managed to eke out a win.
It wasn't easy, despite a 12-1 run that gave the Hodags a 29-22 lead with 5:04 to play. Tomahawk steadily cut into the advantage while the Hodags faltered at the foul line. A Zach Volz turnaround jumper with 55.3 seconds left cut the lead to 30-28.
After Reeve Craig made one of two free throws, Freddy Koth tipped in a Justin Jarvensivu miss to cut the lead to 31-30 with 26.9 seconds left.
Craig, who finished the night 4 of 10 from the foul line, made both ends of a 1-and-1 with 20.9 seconds left. After Jarvensivu missed a contested 3, Brad Comer pulled down the board, was fouled and made both free throws to finally put the game away.
It was far from the way Lemmens envisioned things would play out after the Hodags were embarrassed by the sixth-place Hatchets Jan. 23.
"My hope was these guys would have a lot of fire and they'd be fired up with what happened in Tomahawk but I think, instead, we kind of crumbled under the thought that we could lose twice instead of saying we're frustrated that these guys beat us," he said.
Owen White's double-double streak was snapped at eight games. He finished with 12 points and six rebounds while playing much of the second half in foul trouble, but had a personal 9-1 run to help give the Hodags the lead. He scored the go-ahead basket on a baseline jumper with 8:32 remaining to put Rhinelander up 22-21, the Hodags' first lead since early in the first half. He hit a 3 the next trip down the floor and added a couple of inside baskets as the Hodags grew the lead to seven.
Jarvensivu had a double-double for Tomahawk with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Eleven of those points game in the first half. He and Riley Tollison were the only Hatchets to score as Tomahawk used a 14-3 run to build a 16-8 lead late in the first half. Rhinelander sat passively in a 2-3 zone most of the first half, but began to force the issue after halftime.
"We know Tomahawk wants to play slow. They do this all the time," Lemmens said. "The thing is, if you don't score points, they can do this. We knew the kind of (officiating) crew that we had. We knew it was going to kind of be touch and go, so we didn't want to pressure. We wanted to score points and put the pressure on them to run an offense. The second half we really didn't have a choice. We needed to dictate tempo, so we had to roll the dice."
The defense improved on Jarvensivu in the second half as he was held to only one field goal and missed all four of his 3-point attempts.
"I thought guys won the position battle," Lemmens said of the defense against the Hatchets' leading scorer. "They made him catch the basketball in area where he would have to work to do something. That was important. Last time, we let him get touches wherever he wanted and us not allowing him to get those easy touches was important."
Comer finished with nine points and Matt Reinthaler added six for the Hodags. Tollison added seven points in the loss for Tomahawk.
The win, coupled with Antigo's 90-87 double-overtime loss to Mosinee moved Rhinelander into sole possession of second in the GNC, a game and a half behind Medford ahead of a showdown this coming Thursday at Raider Hall.
But first the Hodags will travel to Wausau West as Lemmens will square off against his younger brother Nate for the fourth straight year. Each of the first three meetings between the coaching brothers has been decided by four points or fewer. Tuesday's game is set for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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