February 10, 2017 at 4:44 p.m.
Raiders end Rhinelander's reign
Hodags fall 2 1/2 games behind Medford with 58-47 loss
Raiders end Rhinelander's reign
The Hodags' quest for a fifth straight Great Northern Conference championship all but came to an end Thursday night at Raider Hall as Rhinelander fell to first-place Medford 58-47.
Medford (14-2, 8-1 Great Northern) won its 14th straight game overall to move 2 1/2 games up on Rhinelander with three conference games to play. The Raiders need to win only one of their final three games to officially wrest away the conference title from the Hodags (10-6, 6-4 Great Northern).
"They're a championship team, plain and simple," RHS boys' basketball coach Derek Lemmens said. "They make plays when they need to. They just play hard and that's a good team that we lost to."
For the second time this season, Medford's Osy Ekwueme torched the Hodags in the second half. He scored all 16 of his points over the final 18 minutes, including a steal, basket and-1 with 1:49 remaining to put the Raiders up 51-44, effectively ending the Hodags' reign atop the GNC.
"We didn't do a good job with him and it starts with my preparation," Lemmens said. "There are some things I didn't emphasize nearly enough. It was a big failure on my part because, from that point on, it just put us in a bad spot."
Owen White logged yet another double-double for the Hodags with 22 points and 15 rebounds, but was only 6-of-15 from the field and committed five turnovers.
Meanwhile the rest of the Hodag offense was ice cold. Rhinelander was only 3-of-19 from beyond the arc and shot 33 percent (16 of 48) overall.
"When you're playing against a team that strong offensively, you've got to make shots," Lemmens said. "I didn't like our shot selection and a lot of times our emphasis was inside touches. Inside touches, we tried to emphasize it without making guys tentative. I think sometimes this group is just happy to settle. That's frustrating because if you go 3-for-19 from 3, you're not a 3-point shooting team. It's clear you've got to look elsewhere for points. We (as coaches) made it the emphasis, but they didn't make it the emphasis."
Rhinelander never led in the contest, as it missed its first six shots of the game and fell into a quick 6-0 hole. The Hodags closed within one, at 17-16 with 4:37 left in the half, but Garrett Strebig hit a 3 and converted on an and-1 for Medford on back-to-back trips down the floor and the Raiders closed the half on an 8-0 run to take a 25-16 lead at the break.
Every time Rhinelander tried to make a push in the second half, Medford had an answer. The Hodags got White going in the second half, scoring 16 of his game-high total, but the Raiders kept Rhinelander at arm's length.
"It worked really well and then I give a lot of credit to their pressure too," Lemmens said of the Hodags' attempt to get White going. "I think their pressure got us uncomfortable offensively to where we didn't look inside. We didn't push inside as much as we should of and a lot of that was their defense. But if something's working, why go away from it? We've got to keep going until they take away."
Easton Senoraske hit a 3 to cut Medford's lead to 37-33 with 11:19 left, but the Raiders answered with a quick 5-0 spurt with a drive in the lane by Ekwueme, an inside basket by Josh Thiede and a made free throw by Ekwueme.
The Hodags got it back within four on a White putback with 4:41 left, but Ben Lindgren answered with a left-handed runner on the other end for Medford. Junior Howard then hit two free throws for the Hodags to cut the lead to 48-44 with 4:00 left, where the score stood until Ekwueme's transition basket off a pair of misses by White.
Matt Reinthaler had eight points for the Hodags. No one else had more than five. Jake Sullivan had 10 points for the Raiders, who were 23 of 49 from the field. Strebig added nine and Thiede chipped in eight.
With the Hodags' conference championship hopes dashed, Lemmens said the team is turning its attention toward the WIAA tournament.
"We still have some key games - Antigo and Lakeland. We're jockeying for position, seeding-wise," he said. "From this point on, we're preparing for the next season. This is a talented group. They have potential. They have a lot of great parts. We can do some special things. We, as a coaching staff, need to get them to that point. That's what we have to do. How good can we get so when the next season starts, we're ready to go out and show everybody what we can be."
That process begins Saturday as the Hodags travel to Deerfield, Illinois for an invitational that has a local connection.
"We do a lot of things with Camp Horseshoe, the boys' camp in Rhinelander," Lemmens explained. "We got some Illinois connection through that. There's a lot of those suburban Chicago schools in that northern suburb area that come up to those basketball camps. We've gained some relationships. It's just a cool thing for them to do and promote their camp. It's just a unique opportunity.
"It's a good chance for us to bound a little bit. Christmastime is always when we take that big step forward. We get to know each other and take that step as teammates. It's late in the year for that, but its not too late and I hope that this helps get us over the hump."
Note: The Rhinelander High School boys' basketball team's game against Wausau West, which was postponed Tuesday due to weather has been rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21 in Wausau. It will be the second-to-last regular season game for the Hodags.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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