February 23, 2018 at 12:28 p.m.
A perfect finale
White's triple-double leads Hodag Hoops to win over Mosinee, 12-0 GNC season
A perfect finale
Owen White had an unusual triple-double for the ninth-ranked (AP) Hodags and Rhinelander pulled away in the second half to defeat Mosinee 75-59 Thursday night at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. The win capped off a 20-2 regular season for the Hodags and a perfect 12-0 mark in the Great Northern Conference.
The standard triple-double is measure by points, rebounds and assists. Though White had five dimes on Thursday night, he had 10 blocked shots to go along with his 28 points and 13 rebounds.
"He shut down the rim, cleaned up the glass. He was the player of the year today," Hodag coach Derek Lemmens said.
All-conference voting, including the vote for conference player of the year, will be conducted by the conference coaches
Sunday in Tomahawk. White made one final statement Thursday in his efforts to become a two-time winner of the award.
"Owen shut the rim down tonight. He was just a man amongst boys tonight when it came to protecting the rim. He prevented some better looks," Lemmens said.
Brad Comer added 20 points for the Hodags, including a buzzer-beating 2 before halftime. Rhinelander used a 5-0 run over the final minute to take a 31-25 lead heading to the break.
"Right before half we made some big buckets, including a buzzer-beater by Brad Comer on a head's up play where Junior Howard pushed the ball up. That really gave us some mo(mentum) going in (to halftime)," Lemmens said. "We came out in the second and things really went well. We had some nice runs where we were able to gain separation."
Rhinelander opened the second half on a 24-8 run to push the lead to 55-33 with just under nine minutes to play to put the game out of reach. Junior Howard added 12 points in the victory
"They ball moved well. When the ball moves well with this team, good things happen," Lemmens said. "They were making the extra passes and doing a lot of really good things. Defensively they clamped down a little bit. We weren't giving up those straight line drives and were going a much better job protecting the hoop and the lane."
Things became heated between the two GNC rivals down the stretch. The teams combined for 24 fouls in the second half, including a pair of bench technicals that lead to Mosinee coach Andy Bruess' ejection from the game with 5:38 remaining.
"It got physical and it just kind of escalated from there," Lemmens said. "It's a conference game. There was some emotion in the game and I thought our guys, overall, did a nice job controlling that. It got a little rough, got a little sloppy but, at the end, we just kind of pulled away."
Oliver Barnes scored 22 points for Mosinee. Austin Freiboth and Seth Kuhn each scored 11.
The teams could potentially meet again next Saturday in a regional final. The top-seeded Hodags will host the winner of Tuesday's Medford-Shawano tournament opener on Friday night while Mosinee would have to get through Wausau East on Tuesday and Marshfield on Friday to advance to the regional finals.
Lemmens said Thursday's game was a nice capper to the regular season, but now the real work begins as the Hodags seek their first WIAA state tournament appearance since 2001, when Lemmens was a senior point guard for Rhinelander.
"We got the conference championship, gave ourselves a great chance with the No. 1 seed and now we just have to look forward because everything we did up to this point is now irrelevant," he said. "It's great. We're proud of it. But now it's the next phase of the season."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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