December 23, 2019 at 1:15 p.m.
Toppling the Cardinals
Lady Hodags rally from down 17 at half, stun No. 7 (D4) Crandon 50-48
Toppling the Cardinals
In the second half, the Hodags could do virtually nothing wrong.
Down 17 at the break, Rhinelander rallied to take the lead and then withstood a buzzer-beating 3 attempt by Crandon's Tabitha Renkas as the Hodags shocked the Cardinals 50-48 at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.
It was the first loss of the season for Crandon (5-1, 3-0 Northern Lakes), ranked No. 7 in Division 4 by WisSports.net. The Cardinals had already posted impressive wins over Wausau West and Lakeland and appeared to be on their way to a lopsided win over the Hodags, before Rhinelander (5-2, 3-0 Great Northern) made a spirited comeback.
"I can't say enough about their resolve and their fortitude," Rhinelander coach Ryan Clark said. "That was just guts and toughness there. They didn't wilt. They just kept playing ... I'm so proud of the girls. You win a game like this and it says a lot about your character as a team. Great win."
Back-to-back 3s by Cynthia Beavers gave Rhinelander a 43-41 lead with 5:25 remaining, the Hodags' first lead since scoring the game's opening basket.
Crandon moved back in front off a Lindsay Littleton putback. Rhinelander's Kenedy Van Zile, who scored a game-high 22 points, answered with a layup on the other end of put Rhinelander ahead for good with 4:30 remaining.
"We had to come out with the best energy that we all could bring to the floor," said Beavers, who scored 10 points, all in the second half. "We all worked our butts off and we got our heads back in the game. We just played as a team in the second half and really worked the ball."
The Hodags had to dodge a couple of bullets in the final minute. Up 48-44, Rhinelander's Megan Brown fouled Renkas, who made both free throws to cut the lead to two. Crandon fouled Van Zile, who made both ends of a 1-and-1 to put Rhinelander ahead 50-46 with 29.7 seconds left. Renkas made a layup with 14 seconds left to get it back to a one-score game.
The Cardinals opted to play for the steal instead of fouling, and the Hodags found Brown ahead of the pack with a clear path to the basket. Instead of going away from the hoop and milking the clock, Brown missed what would have been a potential game-clinching layup. Crandon got the rebound and called timeout with 3.0 seconds remaining.
Needing to go the length of the floor, Renkas caught the inbound pass at half court, and was able to get to the top of the key before attempting the game-winning basket, which missed short and right.
"That one, the clock's your better friend than the points," Clark said of the end-game scenario. "I would have been OK if she would have just ran that one out, dribbled it out. (Brown) took it really hard, but she played a really good game as well. We're learning as a team."
Rhinelander ran into a Crandon buzzsaw in the first half. The Cardinals shot 75% from the floor, including 5 of 5 from 3-point range, as they took a 34-17 lead into the break. What's more the Cardinals did it mainly without Renkas, the team's leading scorer at 19 points per game. She was saddled with early foul trouble, picking up her third less than eight minutes into the game.
Renkas' senior teammates did much of the early damage. McGeshick hit three triples and had 13 points at the break, while Leah Palubicki and Littleton added another 15 to the cause between them.
Meanwhile, Rhinelander was 0 for 8 from distance in the first half.
"They did shoot well in the first half and we didn't shoot well," Clark said. "We spent a lot of time talking about needing to learn from the first half. I don't think you ever win the game in the first half, but you can lose in the first half. I burned three timeouts in the first half to get them settled down."
The roles reversed in the second half. Crandon shot only 5 of 18 in the second half and went 0 for 6 from 3.
Rhinelander, meanwhile, got some shots to drop.
The Hodags started the half on a 12-4 run. A pair of free throws by Beavers cut the lead to 38-29 with 11:06 to play. Following a Crandon bucket by Maddie Stamper, Rhinelander went on a 14-1 run, capped off by Beavers' go-ahead 3.
"Cynthia came back and made those huge shots, those 3s and those free throws," Clark said. "I'm really proud of them because when you fight so hard to get back, sometimes you lose that (momentum) and the other team will make a punch right back at you."
The trio of Van Zile, Beavers and Lawrence scored all but one of Rhinelander's 33 second-half points as a large Miazga Gym crowd sensed momentum switching in the Hodags' direction.
"We had a huge crowd tonight and I can't say enough about our crowd because they hung around," Clark said. "It would have been very easy to leave at halftime. They hung around and they just kept building with us. I thought being at home was the key. We fed off the energy of the crowd."
Lawrence added 14 points for Rhinelander, which shot 43.6% from the field (17 of 39). McGeshick led Crandon with 13, but did not score in the second half. Littleton and Leah Palubicki each had 10.
Renkas, who was shutout in the first half due to foul trouble, finished with seven points.
Though Crandon shot 51.4% for the game (18 of 35), Rhinelander's defense forced 24 Cardinal turnovers.
"We went back to what we call our Nova (defense) and tried to take away the passing lanes up the court and make them slowly get down the court and jump those long passes when they made them," Clark said. "Rebecca, Cynthia, Annika (Johnson), they all started kind of reading that and taking it."
Rhinelander has now won four straight games and is building momentum ahead of a tournament this coming weekend in Watertown and a GNC showdown with Lakeland at the Miazga Gym Jan. 3.
"We're finally starting to know how tough we are and how much we can accomplish," Van Zile said. "I think we're starting to reach our potential and it's really exciting to know that we're one step closer to how we want to play."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.