March 22, 2017 at 1:50 p.m.
Baseball, soccer teams rush to prepare for season
Baseball, soccer teams rush to prepare for season
On one hand the teams know that it could be days rather than weeks until they can get outside and practice on their fields. On the other hand it means early-season games are more likely to be played, giving the teams only a couple of weeks to get ready for competition.
And it's not like either team is easing into to its schedule. The Hodag baseball team opens its schedule April 3 at Green Bay Southwest, kicking off a stretch of five games in six days to begin the season. The Hodag girls' soccer team has a brutal start to the schedule, playing on three consecutive days starting April 6.
That puts an extra emphasis on the first two weeks of practice, getting the teams ready to go.
"Quite frankly, we need to because we play our first game two weeks from today," RHS baseball coach Joe Waksmonski said at the start of Monday's practice in the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.
Soccer starts with two-a-days
The Hodag soccer team wasn't practicing at the stroke of midnight this year, as it did a couple of seasons ago when the first day of practice coincided with the start of spring break, but that doesn't mean there weren't some early morning wake-up calls.
The team started practice at 5:45 Monday morning and will be practicing before school all this week and next week in addition to afterschool practices. Coach Dan Millot, who is entering his 21st season with the team, said the two-a-day practices serve two purposes.
"One is to expedite our conditioning, the other is to get as many touches on the ball as possible in those two weeks," he said. "Hopefully, after this first week, we'll select a varsity team. That's my goal anyway, by this Friday is to have already picked a varsity team and move on."
The Hodags, who will be gunning for a sixth-straight Great Northern Conference championship this spring, have plenty of talent returning from last year's squad that made it to the sectional semifinals, but enter the season with some key holes to fill - particularly on defense and in goal.
"I've got to replace some players from last year and I think we're going to have to move some players around this year in order to put the most competitive team on the field," Millot said.
"I think we'll probably see some younger players step up into some roles and basically put them right into the fire right away just because of their athleticism and their ability to play the game."
As a means to that end, the Hodags finished Monday afternoon's practice session with some indoor 4-on-4 and 5-on-5 scrimmages using different personnel groupings and formations in an effort to determine which combinations work the best.
"It's not unrealistic to think there is a core group of players that are going to step back into some positions because of the experience that they have and the fact they're the best soccer players we have," Millot said. "When you look at past No. 6 on No. 7, everything is wide open on the varsity. I think that's going to provide for a little competition and competition is going to be healthy for us."
Mother Nature willing, Millot said he's optimistic the team will be able to hold a full outdoor practice late this week or early next week. As of Monday the only outdoor activity was a long jog on the streets near the high school at the end of the afternoon session.
"We're going to try to get outside everyday, if nothing else, just to run in the outdoor air and get acclimated the outside conditions as far as our lungs are concerned," Millot said.
The Hodags open with a tough three-game stretch beginning April 6 at Lakeland. That will be followed by back-to-back games against the teams that knocked Rhinelander from the WIAA tournament the last two years - Green Bay Southwest and Pulaski.
Baseball: Extra emphasis placed on pitching
Waksmonski said an extra emphasis will be placed on developing pitchers this spring and for good reason. This is the first year of a new WIAA rule mandating both pitch counts and rest days for pitchers.
"Without a doubt there's going to be an extra emphasis on getting kids on the mound, getting them some experience when we start to do some of our live matchups later in the week," said the 12th-year Hodag coach. "That first week (of competition) we've got five games on the schedule from Monday through Saturday. We're going to need to see some arms and that will be a good time for them to also get an inning or two."
The good news for the Hodags: Waksmonski said open gyms were well-attended over the last couple of months which allowed the team to hit the ground running this week.
"You'll see the kids who were able to take advantage of that time in the cage and throwing off the mound, they'll be ready to go," he said.
Monday's opening practice included a combine of sorts with drills to test speed and agility along with hitting, throwing and fielding. Waksmonski said the rest of the week, which will likely be spent inside the Miazga Gym, will focus on the basics.
"We're just trying to get through what we teach," he said. "It's very basic. We kind of teach to our freshmen and it's a good review for our juniors and seniors, but we want to teach everyone in our program exactly what we want to see for every drill and every fundamental that we do."
The Green Bay Southwest game kicks off a busy week of non-conference action to start the season for the Hodags. Rhinelander travels to Wittenberg-Birnamwood April 4, heads to Merrill April 6 and plays a doubleheader at Shawano April 8. There have been plenty of years when the Hodags' first on-diamond activity was the first game but Waksmonski said Stafford Field was snow-free Monday, giving the Hodags hope that they can get outside to practice before heading to Green Bay.
"Now it's just a matter of getting the frost out of the ground and drying up so we can get outside," he said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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