February 27, 2019 at 12:14 p.m.
RHS wins playoff opener
Howard's career-high 30 points leads Hodags past Shawano 78-65 in regional quarterfinals
RHS wins playoff opener
Howard scored a career-high 30 points in his final home game and the Hodags held off a late surge to defeat Shawano 78-65 in a Division 2 regional final at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.
Rhinelander advances to take on third-seeded Wausau East in the regional semifinal round in Wausau Friday night.
Howard, the team's senior point guard, put on a shooting clinic. He was a perfect 9-for-9 from the field, including 4-for-4 from 3-point range, and 8-for-9 from the foul line.
"Junior was fantastic tonight, played just great basketball, took care of the ball and obviously made some shots," RHS boys' basketball coach Derek Lemmens said. "We couldn't take him off the court. He was too important to us between taking care of the ball and leading the team that way, to making shots and did a pretty good job defensively, too."
Howard scored 23 of those 30 points in the second half and the Hodags used his hot hand to build an 18-point lead with 4:39 to play. Shawano, which hit five 3s in the final five, cut the lead down to seven with 1:24 remaining, but the Hodags made the final eight free throws to salt the game away.
The way the first half went, it did not appear either team was going to reach 60 points - the magic number that Lemmens said the Hodags had to hold teams under to have success in the playoffs.
Rhinelander went on an 11-3 run over the final 5 1/2 minutes of what was otherwise a defensive slog to take a 26-18 lead at halftime.
Shawano got things going in the second half, however, with big 6-8 sophomore Carter Weisnicht. He scored a couple of baskets down low while Nick Grignon hit a pair of 3s to cut Rhinelander's lead to 33-30 just more than three minutes into the second half. That's when Howard responded. He hit back-to-back 3s to spark a 9-0 run that put the Hodags back up by 12. When Shawano cut the lead to six, Howard responded with a three-point play on the next possession put Rhinelander ahead 46-37. That was as close as the Hawks would get until their last minute surge.
Weisnicht was a non-factor much of the first half for Shawano, scoring only six points and picking up his third personal foul on a charge with 3:51 left in the half. He managed his foul trouble in the second and outclassed Rhinelander with his height down low and ended up leading the Hawks with 25 points.
"I thought we did a nice job making Weisnicht work," Lemmens said. "He gets his points. He's a load down there, especially with the lack of size we have, and when they start making 3s, it really stretches the defense and makes the double team hard. Early on I thought we did a nice job but as they started to get more aggressive, a little bit of reckless abandon, they became a little harder to stop."
Nick Sherman hit four 3s down the stretch for Shawano and finished with 17 points, Grignon chipped in 13 for the Hawks, who shot 44 percent from the field (24 of 55).
"We were doing a lot of things right but they made some adjustments and we didn't adjust as well to counter," Lemmens said. "We probably should have gone man-to-man a little earlier during that stretch when they were shooting from deep but, overall, it's an opportunity to learn. We played really good D for one half and now, we've got to put two halves together."
Rhinelander had balance behind Howard as it went 52 percent from the floor (23 of 44). Drake Martin chipped in 13, including five of six free throws down the stretch. Quinn Lamers, battling illness, scored 10 points off the bench. Bryce Schickert had nine points and Peyton Erikson chipped in eight.
Different faces
Rhinelander's starting five looked the same as it has for much of the second half of the season, but the guys coming off the bench were decidedly different Tuesday night.
Seldom-used senior Neil Mathews was the first sub into the game for the Hodags. He saw short stretches of minutes as did his younger brother Kirk, who did not suit up at all on varsity during the regular season. Sophomore Jackson Labs, who also saw only a handful of varsity minutes during the regular season, was a fixture in the rotation Tuesday night and made a couple of key free throws to extend Rhinelander's lead to 74-65 with 53.6 seconds remaining.
"We've got guys that are just going to get little spurts," Lemmens said. "They know that and they've embraced that. That's good. We've got our primary guys that need the big minutes and then we've got guys coming off the bench that bring energy and allow those other guys to rest."
Wausau East ahead
Friday night the Hodags travel to Wausau East which comes in 12-8 overall, but struggled a bit during the second half of the season. Following an 8-1 start, East went 4-7 down the stretch, including a 24-point loss to Merrill in its last game back on Feb. 21.
Still, Lemmens said East will be a difficult matchup tomorrow night.
"They can score the basketball. If we try to make it a scoring match, we're going to lose," he said. "We have to play defense and we have to take care of the ball. They like to play fast, they like to shoot the 3s and they have a very good big inside. It's similar to a little more talented Shawano where they have a big that can play all over the court and they've got guys around him that can shoot."
Gabe Krueger comes in averaging 19.1 points and 7.1 rebound per game for the Lumberjacks. Wausau East had four players who average at least nine points per game and have a sharpshooter from the outside in Ryan LaCerte, who made nearly 50 percent of his 3-point attempts the season (46 of 93).
"We're really going to have to step it up defensively and take care of the ball, offensively," Lemmens said. "We need to make sure we're not turning it over and leading into transition points for those guys as well."
Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. The winner will move on to Saturday's regional final round and face the winner of Friday's game between second-seeded New London and seventh-seeded Antigo.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.