March 25, 2019 at 4:55 p.m.
Lady Hodags ride the wave to historic season
Lady Hodags ride the wave to historic season
The Lady Hodags elevated themselves from a good team to a great team during the second half of the 2018-19 season, which saw the Hodags lose only once after the calendar turned to 2019.
Rhinelander rode that wave to a 13-game winning streak and an undefeated record in the Great Northern Conference.
"This season was historic," RHS girls' basketball coach Ryan Clark said earlier this month at the team's banquet. "We won (the conference championship) and this team right here, you will always have it. We have the picture and the trophy and the net and everything that goes with it. That will be history."
Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.
CHASING HISTORY
The first hint that Rhinelander could be on to something great this year came in game No. 2 of the season, when the team beat Marshfield for the first time in more than a decade and a half - on the road no less.
A 59-45 win at two-time defending conference champion Lakeland on Dec. 7 moved Rhinelander from potential GNC contenders to early-season conference favorites.
Some non-conference struggles left the Hodags 5-5 overall coming out of the holiday break, but Rhinelander rang in the new year with a 76-35 win over Tomahawk and never looked back.
The team put itself in the driver's seat for a GNC title with a 81-63 win in the rematch against Lakeland Jan. 25 and clinched the title Feb. 13 after Lakeland dropped an overtime contest to Medford.
When all was said and done, the Hodags won all 12 conference games by 11 points or more and had an average margin of victory of 27.8 points.
The team was able to put the finishing touches on its conference title with a 30-point win at home over Antigo.
"I think it was such a neat thing for the girls to accomplish it at home, last game of the season, senior night, a big crowd and then they got to cut down the nets in front of their home crowd," Clark said following that game. "We had a full gym tonight. I think that was really special for the kids and the crowd gave them a really nice ovation. That's probably the thing I take away most from it.
"They met every challenge, home and away, and to have a chance to do it in front of the home crowd and fans was very special."
KENEDY'S CORONATION
Kenedy Van Zile was already a known commodity in the GNC, having earned unanimous first-team honors as a sophomore. This year, however, she took her game to a new level as she was named conference player of the year.
She averaged 24.6 points per game overall this season. Her 317 points in conference play were the second-most in a single season, only five behind Northland Pines' Lexi Smith (2016-17). She also set a conference record for most 3-pointers made in a season (45) and set a team record for steals in a season (101).
Van Zile surpassed 1,000 points for her career at Medford Feb. 8 and is now only the fourth player in conference history to score more than 500 points in conference games. With a repeat of this season, she would end her senior year's as the GNC's No. 2 all-time scorer, behind only Smith.
"Kenedy was like having two players on the court - a scorer and a ball handler," Clark said. "They tried everything they could to guard her - faceguarding her, double-teaming her, junk defenses - and she always came through for us."
KEY ADDITIONS
Early in the season, it appeared Van Zile would have to carry the load on offense - and she did with a 40-point effort in a season-opening loss - but two players who were not on the Hodags' roster on the first day of practice helped give Rhinelander a lift and took some of the scoring burden off of her.
Brooke Mork, who missed the second half of her junior season, returned after missing the first week of practice this year and averaged 8.5 points per game for Rhinelander.
"I think she slid in real well as a scorer for us," Clark said. "Having her back this year was huge."
The other key addition was junior Cynthia Beavers, who transferred into the district from Three Lakes roughly a week into practice. She ended up averaging 8.2 points and 6.3 rebounds a contest, and was named a first-team all-conference selection.
"I had no idea that we had a really good transfer coming to Rhinelander all of a sudden," Clark said. "For her to come in, second week of the season - new school, new friends, new classes and try to play a varsity sport right in the middle of a season - that's a lot to handle and I think she acclimated unbelievably well."
ACHILLES HEEL
Rhinelander burned inferior teams with pressure defense, transition baskets and the ability to make 3-pointers at a high clip.
However, the Hodags ran into trouble was when teams put the clamps on the fast break, causing the offense to sputter in prolonged half-court sets.
The Hodags averaged 65.9 points per game in their 18 wins, and only 42.7 points per game in their six losses. Those defeats included a 30-point effort agains Eau Claire Regis, a 40-point effort against Crandon and a season-ending 53-22 loss at New London.
The common thread with all three teams was height and athleticism that bothered the Hodags' perimeter-oriented game.
"We're not going to win on the road if we can't shoot the basketball better than that," Clark said, after his team shot less than 20 percent from the field in a Dec. 11 loss at Crandon. "From the beginning, I thought their physicality, their offensive rebounds, their finishing inside (hurt us). I thought we didn't move our feet very well defensively."
It was a pattern repeated in the loss to New London in the WIAA regional finals.
WHAT'S NEXT
Overall, optimism abounds for the Hodags moving forward with Van Zile and Beavers back for their senior seasons. Sophomore Rebecca Lawrence developed into another scoring threat for the Hodags, scoring 20 points or more in three of the final five games of the season.
Mork and Payton Van Zile, Kenedy's older sister, will be the only two members gone from this year's rotation, which was one of the deepest Clark has had in his tenure in Rhinelander.
"Obviously, we have a very good team coming back - younger and older," Clark said. "I think we can go even further than we did this year. I think we can improve even more."
The trick, Clark said, will be for the team to put aside the added pressure and expectations that come with success and play with the same fearlessness that helped the team reach new heights this year.
"I want us to come in with no mental baggage, be free of all of that and come in again as a new team and do the best we can to play with joy and peace, and accomplish as high as we can to that ceiling. Then the results will be what they are," he said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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