December 28, 2018 at 1:46 p.m.
Top 10 local sports stories of 2018
Top 10 local sports stories of 2018
This year brought with it changes in the coaching realm that could potentially serve as turning points for several RHS sports teams. There were losses that could signify the end of current runs of success for some programs and wins that could bring about renewed good fortunes for others.
Rhinelander had a state champion in 2018. It also had to deal with another longtime rival - Mother Nature - wreaking havoc with several sports seasons.
The year 2018 had a little something for everybody, which made paring down my list to the 10 biggest stories of the year a bit of a challenge.
1. Ferge let go
One year ago, the Rhinelander High School football team was feeling optimistic after winning back-to-back games to close out the 2017 season. Now the team is in search of its third different head coach in seven years.
A 1-8 campaign in 2018 ultimately spelled the end of the road for Chris Ferge as head coach of the Hodags. He went 9-35 in five seasons at the helm for Rhinelander and his only two Great Northern Conference wins were the back-to-back triumphs over Ashland and Lakeland at the end of last year.
Following a season-opening win over Prescott, the Hodags lost their final eight games of the 2018 season, including losses against Tomahawk, Wausau East, Antigo, Merrill and Lakeland in which the Hodags had a chance to win in the second half.
A group of parents concerned about the direction of the program met with RHS activities director Brian Paulson and district superintendent Kelli Jacobi in November, which prompted more parent conversations and a survey of players in regard to Ferge.
On Dec. 5, Ferge was informed by Paulson that the district would not be renewing his football coaching contract for the 2019 season. While the team's on-field success played a factor, Jacobi said "communication issues" between coaches, players and parents ultimately precipitated the change.
"It became apparent that there was a loss of confidence and support in the program, in the coaches," Jacobi told the River News Dec. 6, a day after Ferge was not renewed. "It was a majority of the parents and players. It looked to be insurmountable, so it was in the best interest of the program to move forward and look for a new coach."
For his part, Ferge thanked the district for the opportunity and noted he remains optimistic about the Hodag football team's chances next year, though he will not be a part of it.
"Wins and losses are very, very important and people aren't interested in knowing the details, going through the film and seeing where things went wrong," he said. "We've had some tough years and we've had some big wins, and we had some games that we were very, very close to winning, down to the final play, that we didn't win. Sometimes the bounces don't go your way. I don't ask questions, why or why not."
2. Wacky weather
For the second time in five years Mother Nature, more specifically Old Man Winter's stubbornness, led to a dramatically altered spring sports schedule.
A mid-April snowstorm that dumped in excess of a foot of snow over much of the area was just part of a slow arrival to spring. The end result was a five-week schedule, essentially, for the outdoor portion of the spring season. Baseball and softball teams in the Great Northern Conference had to play doubleheaders to get in their 12-game conference schedule. The girls' soccer conference season was cut in half and, in total, 54 Rhinelander High School spring sports contests were cancelled, postponed or rescheduled due to the unseasonable month of April. Most teams had to go south to play their first competitions. The RHS girls' soccer team played a triangular against D.C. Everest and Bay Port in Madison. The RHS baseball and softball teams traveled to Wisconsin Dells to play Crivitz and Peshtigo to open the season.
"We're going to be outside," RHS baseball coach Joe Waksmonski said at the time, relishing the chance to play a game. "We're outside. We're playing baseball against a different school. Granted we're going to be on FieldTurf, but we're going to be outside in a baseball setting."
That was not the only time Mother Nature decided to wreak havoc on sporting events in the Northwoods as rain plagued the area much of the summer and fall. The Rhinelander Post 7 Rebels struggled to get a modified round-robin schedule in for their soggy Father's Day weekend tournament. The RHS boys' soccer team played its last few home games in front of the high school instead of Mike Webster Stadium due to September rains that saturated the football field. The RHS cross country team had to do significant trail work to prep its flooded course ahead hosting of the Great Northern Conference meet in mid-October.
"That was our best option for trying to dry out the course and, I'm going to be honest, I thought it held up incredibly well considering the parts of it that were under water. We did a lot with what we had," coach M.J. Laggis said at the time, calling it a stressful week of race course preparation ahead of the conference meet. "(Assistant) coach (Melissa) Krueger and myself, we had a ton of parent support. We had our athletic director out here shoveling chips. We had a lot of people on board helping to make it work. Without the parents, it wouldn't have happened today."
3. Won & Done
In 2013, when the Rhinelander High School boys' basketball team broke into the top 10 in the Associated Press Division 2 state poll, a stumble at Medford knocked the Hodags out of the polls.
Fast forward five years and Medford played spoiler to a successful Rhinelander season again.
The Hodags went 20-2 in the 2017-18 regular season, found themselves back in the AP top 10 for a time during the season and won the Great Northern Conference title with an undefeated campaign. A home win Feb. 13 against Medford clinched the conference championship for the Hodags outright.
But when the two teams met again at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium in the WIAA regional semifinals, the Raiders had another surprise in store for the top-seeded Hodags.
Rhinelander fell behind by as many as 12 points in the seconds half, and though the Hodags rallied to force overtime, they could not shake the plucky Raiders, who pulled a 63-61 upset.
Owen White, the Hodags' leading scorer and eventual all-state honoree, could not make a contested jump shot from eight feet that would have sent the game to a second overtime. The end result was Rhinelander's third one-and-done effort in the playoffs in four tries since reaching the sectional finals in 2014.
"Medford played really well. That's the best they've played all season. They saved their best for the right time," Hodag coach Derek Lemmens said.
4. Bloomquist wins state bowling title
The same weekend state tournament hopes ended for the RHS boys' basketball team another RHS senior was realizing his dreams on the state's biggest stage.
Darin Bloomquist capped off a strong senior season by winning the Wisconsin High School Bowling Club state championship March 4 at Dale's Weston Lanes.
Bloomquist, the top bowler in the club's ninth district during the 2017-18 season, was the top qualifier in the preliminary rounds and received an automatic berth into the championship match, where he defeated Sun Prairie's Austin Set, 193-172.
"It was long way coming through here," Bloomquist told the River News less than a hour after capturing the state title. "I knew what I had to do showing up today, try to throw 12 quality shots. It didn't matter if I won by one pin or 100 pins. I probably threw about half as good of shots as what I needed to throw but, in the end, I came out on top."
5. Millot steps down
For the first time in more than two decades, someone other than Dan Millot will be leading the Rhinelander High School boys' and girls' soccer teams on to the pitch in 2019.
Millot stepped down from his dual head-coaching position in the middle of November, a few weeks after his Hodag boys fell to Waupaca in overtime in the WIAA Division 3 regional finals.
Millot is the only coach the girls' soccer team has known since its inception. He's coached both squads since 1996.
Millot's teams experienced great success, especially since joining the Great Northern Conference. The Hodags have won six GNC girls conference championships and six GNC boys' championships.
Millot guided the RHS girls' soccer team to WIAA state tournament appearances in 2014 and 2015 and his teams appeared in five sectional finals overall - three in girls' soccer and three in boys' soccer.
Millot said he's looking forward to spending more time with family in the coming years.
"I'm looking forward to the next chapter that lies before me," Millot told the River News. "The past two-plus decades have been very rewarding, very challenging, and I think I'm at the stage in my life where I want to try some new things. Sometimes change is good and I can say that, as I leave both programs, that I'm leaving two solid programs - programs that have talent. I think that whoever ends up taking my place - either the boys' or the girls' program, or both - will have a step up on things because of how solid I believe the program is right now."
The School District of Rhinelander recently hired two of Millot's assistant coaches to replace him in the head coaching role. Long-time assistant Richard Kotula will take over leadership of the girls' program while Nathan Bates will assume the boys' head coaching position.
6. The 'Edge' of extinction
For most of the time between the end of the 2017-18 season and the start of the 2018-19 campaign, the Rhinelander/Antigo girls' hockey team wasn't sure what its team would look like moving forward, or if it would have a team at all.
Ultimately, the Northern Edge remained in the same configuration its had since 2009, when Antigo joined Rhinelander's previously standalone program to form the co-op, but it was an offseason full of uncertainty for a program that was down on numbers.
RHS activities director Brian Paulson tried to swing a deal to merge the co-op with the Lakeland/Tomahawk co-op, but his offer was declined by then Lakeland AD Don Scharbarth. Then, in October, Paulson tried to swing a deal with Northland Pines. The two sides agreed, in principle, on a merger and the deal was about to head to the Northland Pines school board for final approval, however Paulson called it off the morning of the meeting after the Edge recruited enough players to go it alone this season.
"As of two weeks ago the Edge had 10 girls which was still worrisome," Paulson explained in an email to Northland Pines AD Brian Margelofsky, a copy of which was obtained by the River News. "During the last two weeks we have recruited one more girl to play on the team and four others are considering. Our goal has always been to recruit more numbers and have as many Northwoods teams as possible."
The Antigo/Northland Pines/Rhinelander co-op would have been ineligible for the 2019 WIAA playoffs because it would have formed following the April 1 deadline to declare co-operative teams for the 2018-19 season.
Additionally, the Edge welcomed a new coaching staff for the 2018-19 season with former RHS boys' hockey assistant Tom Roeser taking the reins from Kevin Sandstrom, who stepped down last spring to leave the area and further his education.
7. Wrestling's super seniors
Then Rhinelander High School wrestling coach Paul Ellenbecker faced a problem most wrestling coaches only dream of having at the 2018 WIAA individual state wrestling tournament.
During one of the preliminary rounds the Hodags had more wrestlers on the mats simultaneously at the Kohl Center in Madison than the staff had coaches on the floor to supervise.
It was the pinnacle of perhaps one of the most successful seasons in Rhinelander High School wrestling history, and a strong class of seven seniors deserves much of the credit.
Five of those seniors - Reuben Guzik, Tyler Olson, Jacob DeMeyer, Alex Kurtz and Colton Krueger - were individual Great Northern Conference champions and helped the team reclaim the GNC crown for the fourth time in five years, after having it taken for a season by Medford. Those same five were regional champions and all made it through a tough Division 1 sectional at Wausau West to qualify for the WIAA state tournament.
At state, two of those wrestlers - Guzik and DeMeyer - won their first two matches to advance to the Friday night semifinals at the Kohl Center. Though they both lost to the eventual state champions in their respective weight classes, they both rallied to place at state, as did Kurtz, who recovered from a quarterfinal loss to finish third at 195.
DeMeyer became Rhinelander's all-time winningest wrestler in the process and one of only a handful of Rhinelander grapplers to qualify for the WIAA state meet in all four years. Kurtz set the team's pins record. Overall, Ellenbecker said the legacy of the 2018 RHS class of wresters is undeniable.
"They put us back on the map in the state of Wisconsin, I believe," he said. "A lot of people know who we are and that our kids compete. This group of kids, they really did a great job. That class is going memorable for a long time and some of those records aren't going to be broken for a long time."
8. Hodag netters reclaim GNC
Last week we named the Great Northern Conference girls' tennis meet as our best local sporting event of 2018. How the event came to hold such importance is quite the story in itself.
The story actually began in the fall of 2017, when Antigo upended Rhinelander for the GNC title, ending the Hodags' run of seven straight conference championships.
With both squads returning virtually all of their players entering the 2018 season, it stood to reason the conference championship race would be another heavyweight title bout between the two teams. It turned out to be all of that and then some.
Antigo drew first blood in the 2018 version of the battle, rallying to win three, three-set matches and beat Rhinelander 4-3 in a dual Sept. 6 in Antigo. That gave the Red Robins an early leg up in the conference standings, but Rhinelander essentially ran the table from their in conference duals while Antigo slipped, falling 4-3 to Wausau Newman in the final dual of the regular season.
That gave Rhinelander a four-point lead on Antigo entering the GNC tournament Sept. 22 in Minocqua. Antigo again appeared to have the upper hand as the tournament played out, advancing to the championship match in all seven flights. Rhinelander staggered in the semifinal round, losing four of its seven matches, putting its conference title hopes on life support.
Essentially, Rhinelander had to run the table in the final round, and get some help from others, to surpass Antigo. That's exactly what happened. The Hodags won all seven of their matches in the last round - including the four head-to-head championship matches against Antigo. The Robins slipped up in two other flights.
The end result, Rhinelander defeated Antigo 114-112 for the conference championship despite losing head-to-head to the Robins and being outpointed by Antigo 32-30 at the conference tournament.
It all boiled down to the final match of the conference tournament as Rhinelander No. 2 singles players Emma Roberts rallied from down a set to defeat Antigo's Ellie Kelly 10-8 in a decisive supertiebreaker.
Coach Bob Heideman summed it up best after the conference tournament. "As I get older, I do this to have stories and this is a great story," he said.
9. Girls' soccer title run ends
After Antigo ended the RHS girls' tennis team's run of seven straight conference titles, the mantle for the longest conference championship streak at RHS was passed to the Hodag girls' soccer team, which had won six straight crowns from 2012-2017.
2018 spelled the end of that team's streak. A 1-0 loss to Ashland May 15 in the teams' lone meeting of a weather-shortened season spelled the end of the Hodags' run atop the conference. Ashland went a perfect 7-0 in league play, beating the Hodags' by a game for the conference crown.
Ashland jubilantly celebrated after the game, which essentially served as a de facto conference title bout. It was the second time Ashland defeated the Hodags in Rhinelander. The first, back in 2016, ended Rhinelander's 49-game GNC unbeaten streak.
"I had the team listen to that and we talked about it and I wanted them to remember what that feels like to have people celebrate on your field," coach Dan Millot said. "We're two evenly matched teams. Again, they put one in and we didn't. What can you say."
10. Boys' hockey sets wins record
The Rhinelander High School boys' hockey team had a great run in the 2017-18 season. When all was said and done, that season's team recorded more wins than any other in school history.
The team broke the record of 14 wins - set by the 2008-09 squad that advanced to a sectional semifinal at Lakeland - with a 4-0 win over Wausau East/Merrill Feb. 8.
"We've battled this year," senior captain Cole Spaulding said. "We've had a lot of ups. We've had a lot of downs. To reach this 15 wins is really big, but I think as a team it hasn't sunk in yet. I think a couple of days, we'll be really feeling it."
"I think it's a good step for the program," coach M.J. Laggis added. "I keep everything in perspective. I realize there are quite a few programs around that have won more than 15 games, but this is a big step for our group."
The Hodags pushed the record to 16 wins with a dramatic 5-4 overtime win over Mosinee in the regional semifinal round of the playoffs Feb. 13.
Honorable mention
• Former RHS boys' basketball coach Rich Fortier nearly made the list after earning his first win in 13 tries against his former team as Lakeland defeated Rhinelander 74-59 on Dec. 7. "Doesn't feel much different, to be honest with you," Fortier told The Lakeland Times afterward, downplaying the importance of ending the streak. "I am, however, attempting to answer approximately 13 (congratulatory) texts I've received in the last hour. Life is good. Except I'm not a great texter."
• Several RHS athletes, not already mentioned, deserve a tip of the cap for qualifying for WIAA state tournaments. Those athletes include Russell Benoy, Devon Gaber, Joseph Heck, Thaddeus Heck, Martin Hoger and David King (boys' swimming); Raven Sturtevant and Stephanie Kuester (gymnastics); Markus Johnson (boys' tennis); Bridger Flory (cross country) and Makenna Winnicki (girls' swimming).
• The Wisconsin State Amateur's first appearance north of Wisconsin Highway 29 was noteworthy, with Harrison Ott holding off Thomas Longbella in an eight-hole playoff at Minocqua Country Club. Former Dallas Cowboys' quarterback Tony Romo was in the field and finished tied for 13th. Several local golfers qualified for the event but only Eagle River's Garth Glister made the 36-hole cut.
• Continuing the theme of coaching changes, a total of six RHS programs saw some sort of a coaching change in 2018. In addition to football, boys' soccer, girls' soccer and girls' hockey, Ellenbecker stepped down as RHS wrestling coach and was replaced by Nathan Piasecki. Also, longtime RHS volleyball coach Kathy Wawrzynowicz retired and was replaced by one of her former players, Brianna Scheuermann (nee Gilbert).
• RHS had five GNC champion teams in 2018, including the RHS boys' tennis team which won it's fifth straight conference title. The tennis team and the RHS gymnastics team receive honorable mention as conference championship teams not listed in the top 10.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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