April 16, 2020 at 10:20 a.m.
Team Review: Rhinelander club bowling: Hodag boys go from long shots to state
Team Review: Rhinelander club bowling: Hodag boys go from long shots to state
"We've got four matches coming up and the ultimate goal is we need to win all four to have a chance to make it to state," coach Mike Bourcier said in late January. "That's the mindset we've got here. We've got to figure out how we can pull it out."
The Hodags did pull it out, winning their final four matches, and getting some help, to qualify for state. The team made the most of the experience while there, qualifying for the Division 2 semifinals before losing the first game of the stepladder tournament and placing fifth overall.
It was quite the run for the club bowling teams based out of Hodag Lanes. The Hodag boys went 7-2-1 in District 9 to finish third in the league.
While the Rhinelander/Elcho girls finished fourth out of five Division 2 girls' teams with a 5-5 conference mark, they still qualified two individuals for the state meet.
Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.
Run the table
The first year of a winner-take-all format for head-to-head matches in the WiHSBC led to an interesting scenario for the Hodag boys entering the final two conference doubleheaders of the season.
Rhinelander/Three Lakes was fifth in the D9 standings 1 1/2 games behind Iola-Scandinavia for the third and final league qualifying spot in Division 2.
That's when things started to fall into place for the Hodags. A 7 1/2-1 1/2 win over Antigo and a 5-4 win over Manawa on Feb. 2 in Marshfield kept Rhinelander in the hunt, moving the Hodags to fourth in the standings, but still 1 1/2 games behind Merrill and Iola-Scandinavia, who sat second in the league standings.
Entering the final two matches Feb. 16 in Plover, the Hodags needed to win both, and have the loser of the Merrill vs. Iola-Scandinavia match also lose its second match of the day. What's more, Rhinelander had to start the day against Amherst, which came in a 8-0 in the district standings.
The Hodags took care of the most difficult hurdle, edging Amherst 5-4 in the first match of the day. Meanwhile, Iola-Scandinavia beat Merrill 6-3. The Hodags made easy work of Wittenberg-Birnamwood, winning the second match 7-2, while Merrill was fighting to maintain the final state tournament berth as it trailed Edgar-Athens 4-3 in its match. When Edgar-Athens took Game 8 165-162, Rhinelander/Three Lakes clinched an unlikely state tournament berth.
"We look over there and Athens squeaked up Game 8 to go up 5-3 and win their match and the boys just got all excited. They're clapping, hooting and hollering," Bourcier said. "It's really exciting. I told the parents when we walked into here today we never thought that would happen. There's a bunch of parents pumped that we'll be going to state ... That was a good, good day for the boys. It was very exciting. I didn't really have to coach them much and a few fine adjustments. It wasn't a whole lot coaching."
State experience
Perhaps it was fitting that, once the Hodags got to state, there was drama and uncertainty as to whether the teams would make the cut and advance to the semifinals. Rhinelander/Three Lakes was assigned to bowl in the Friday evening shift in the team preliminary rounds.
The team put together a score of 2,798 pins (186.5 average) over the course of their 15-game baker series. That left the Hodags in third place following the opening wave and waiting for the results of Saturday morning's second and third waves to see if they were among the top five to make the semifinals.
Only one other team jumped ahead of the Hodags during that time. The team was on-call most of the afternoon so it could make the one hour 15-minute drive down to Weston to bowl in Saturday night's semifinal.
The team spent most of Saturday waiting and wondering whether it would need to make the trip back to Weston on Saturday night. While the team got back to Weston in plenty of time for the semifinals, it did not have enough to take down fifth-seeded Campbellsport, which defeated the Hodags 394-326 in the first round of the stepladder.
"We end up fifth. I'm proud of the kids," coach Mike Bourcier said. "It's as far as any Rhinelander team that I've coached has made it. It's an experience finishing fifth out of the 25 teams here. If you look at Division 2, I haven't added them up but there's probably 150 D2 teams and we finished fifth in the state. You've got to be proud of that."
The Hodags also had three individuals qualify for state, by virtue of their season-long fill percentages. Calvin Schneider, a senior on the Rhinelander/Three Lakes boys' team, shot 460 to finish 96th in the boys' singles competition. Katrina Blasius and Mackenzie Bourcier, both juniors on the Rhinelander/Elcho girls' team, missed the semifinal cutline by fewer than 20 pins. Blasius barely missed the cutline, which was the top 15 and ties. She shot 570 in a standard three-game series to finish 16th, missing the semifinals by three pins. Mackenzie Bourcier, who qualified for the state semifinals a year ago as a sophomore, shot 557 to finish 20th and miss the cut by 16 pins.
By the numbers
Schneider was the top bowler for the Rhinelander/Three Lakes boys' this season. He threw strikes in 48.8% of his frames during district play this season and his overall 88.4% fill rate was good enough for third place in District 9.
Kody Litzen, a sophomore, was second on the team with a 80.5% fill rate which was 17th overall in the district and 4.1 percentage points shy of eligibility for the state individual tournament. Junior Jacob Wagler, who missed the first half of the season, finished with a 78.2% fill rate. Freshman Cody Bednarz (71.7%), junior Jeremiah Braun (66.7%) and senior Eric Jones (61.9%) rounded out the boys' varsity squad.
On the girls' side Blasius (80.2%) and Mackenzie Bourcier (78.2%) finished third and fifth, respectively, in the District 9 standings. Sophomore Bella Walkowski (70.2%) finished 15th overall in the district. Senior Alexis Kriesel (53.6%) and sophomore Paige Bailey (18.4%) rounded out the squad.
Middle schoolers
At the middle school level, the Rhinelander middle school team went 2-5 on the season, placing seventh out of 10 teams in the District 9 North Division.
Calvin Welch led the Hodags with a 63.5% fill rate, followed by, Johanna Dellenbach (51.6%) Alex Hall (50.8%), Payton McCue (44.4%) and Blake Klingen (40.5%).
"The kids were rolling the ball well at times and they looked like they were having fun and they win," coach Bourcier said. "The got their second win of the season. I know it's not where they're hoping to be, but when you have two new bowlers on the team and they're still learning and getting better - Calvin's the only eighth grader that would move on. The others, if they stay with it, they should be a good, solid team next year."
What's next
The biggest question entering next year will be what sort of configuration will the Hodag bowling team(s) have.
Over the last two seasons, the Hodags have had at least five high school bowlers of each gender, allowing the team to split into separate boys' and girls' squads. With two boys (Schneider and Jones) and one girl (Kriesel) set to graduate, and only one boy (Welch) set to come up from the middle school team, the Hodags will likely have to recruit a couple more athletes or merge back into one co-ed high school team for the next year.
The good news is, should the team have to merge in to one co-ed outfit, there will be plenty of talented bowlers returning - including Litzen, Bednarz, Braun, Blasius and Mackenzie Bourcier - with state tournament experience.
"I look forward to next year and what we can make out of this and making a team here," coach Bourcier said.
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