March 15, 2017 at 4:01 p.m.
Team Review: RHS wrestling
Hodags struggle in GNC, flourish in postseason
Team Review: RHS wrestling
On one hand, the Hodags did not win the Great Northern Conference title, despite entering the season as the favorites to win a fourth consecutive crown. On the other hand, the Hodags sent four wrestlers to the WIAA Division 1 state tournament - their largest contingent in Madison since the early 1990s - and placed a wrestler on the podium at state for the first time in three years.
"We were all kind of disappointed with not winning conference, but you look at the big picture," RHS wrestling coach Paul Ellenbecker said last month during the team's season-ending banquet. "There were a lot of good things this year and we're going to continue to move forward."
Here are a few notes from the Hodags' 2016-17 campaign:
The title run ends
After sharing the conference title with Tomahawk last season, and returning the majority of the wrestlers from that squad, another conference championship seemed highly likely for the Hodags entering this year's campaign.
What was more difficult to predict were the surprising turnarounds in Medford and Antigo that would shake the stranglehold the Hodags had on the conference.
Antigo upset the Hodags on the road 45-29 and then Rhinelander fell to Medford at home 45-31 less than a week later to finish 3-2 in GNC duals, and enter the GNC tournament in third place in the conference standings.
"We're pretty much done," Ellenbecker said following the Medford loss. "We, truthfully, don't deserve it. We have too many guys that don't come to practice, miss morning practice, don't do anything extra and we're not a conference championship team. We have individuals that put the effort in but, as a team, we haven't done a good enough job this year overall to deserve to win a conference title."
The Hodags needed a miracle at the conference meet - to win the tournament outright and have Medford finish third or worse to earn a share of the conference crown. There was no such divine intervention as the Hodags finished second in the tournament, 26 points behind the Raiders.
Give me a break
The impact the pertussis outbreak had was a common theme among the RHS sports teams. Hodag squads were banned from practicing Dec. 17 through Jan. 2 - and from competition for another six days - as the illness prompted the Oneida County Health Department to shutter schools during the holiday break.
Whether that cost the Hodags a conference title or not is open for discussion, but the Hodags did miss a couple of major tournaments as a result and struggled with cohesion during much of the season.
"It didn't help having over Christmas break, missing that time," Ellenbecker said. "It didn't feel like we gelled very well. It was one of those feelings like, 'What's going on here?' It just didn't feel like we connected. I don't know what it was, but maybe around SPASH duals time (Jan. 14) we kind of started coming together. I saw the freshmen interacting more with the upperclassmen. I saw juniors take a bigger leadership role."
Playoff push
The Hodags seemed to hit their stride come tournament time, placing second in a Division 1 regional in Merrill against all seven members of the Wisconsin Valley Conference, and second in a Division 1 sectional in River Falls ahead of all seven Valley schools.
"At sectionals we probably had our best performance in a while," Ellenbecker said. "People took notice. We finished second overall to Hudson, which represented (the section) at the team (state meet). More importantly we finished ahead of every Valley team at the sectional tournament. It wasn't long ago that the Valley was the toughest conference in the state and if you would have put Rhinelander ahead of all those teams in a tournament, they would have been like, 'Yeah, all right.'"
In all, four Hodags qualified for the WIAA state meet. Jacob DeMeyer finished fourth in the 145-pound weight class, losing to eventual state champ Jaden Van Maanen of La Crosse Central in the semifinal. Reuben Guzik (113), Alec Bess (160) and Alec Kurtz (182) all made it into the wrestleback, but were eliminated during the consolation rounds on the second day of the tournament.
Tyler Olson (120), Eric Grulke (138) and Colton Krueger (195) were Rhinelander's other regional qualifiers.
What's next
The good news for Rhinelander is, aside from Bess, the remaining group of regional and sectional qualifiers are all slated to return next year led by DeMeyer, who will look to accomplish the rare feat of being a four-time state qualifier. Middle-weight Alec Modrow and seldom-used 120-pounder Payton Hartman join Bess among those graduating from the program this spring.
With a senior-heavy squad next year and a strong group of freshmen-to-be set to enter the fold, Ellenbecker expect the Hodags to be right back in conference contention in 2017-18.
"We've got a lot of good kids coming back and we have a lot of promise coming up with the eighth-grade class. The future's bright in Rhinelander," he said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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