October 19, 2020 at 8:36 a.m.
RHS soccer rests starters, falls to Medford
RHS soccer rests starters, falls to Medford
With the GNC title already secured and nothing on the line at Medford, the Hodags sat a number of their starters in a 7-0 loss to the Raiders to close out the regular season.
The loss snapped a seven-game winning streak for Rhinelander (11-2-0, 8-2-0 Great Northern) and allowed Medford (8-3-0, 7-3-0 GNC) to finish alone in second in the final conference standings, but Rhinelander coach Nathan Bates said that was the least of his concerns.
"We got a lot of kids with some injuries that they've been healing. It's been a short season with a lot of games in it. We had nothing else to prove in conference. The boys already went out and proved what they had to prove to take home the championship, so we utilized tonight to get some JV more playing time, seeing that they didn't have as many games," Bates said. "I've got a lot of kids on the varsity squad right now that are nursing some injuries and they have been for weeks now. We thought it was a smart idea to sit them and allow some of these injuries to recuperate before our first (playoff) game in about 10 days."
Medford scored on a Colton Gowey goal in the seventh minute, but it would take the Raiders another 51 minutes to score again. From there, however, the floodgates opened against a tired Rhinelander squad, a number of whom had played in the JV game earlier in the evening.
"Our JV squad, I'm extremely proud that we kept them to one goal on us at halftime," Bates said. "That was a win in our eyes for our JV team after they had just finished playing a game against their JV squad prior to the game."
Medford, which appeared to not rest its starters, scored three times in less than two minutes to blow the game open in the second. Owen Wipf beat sophomore keeper Cooper Radke in the 58th minute and then Gowey scored a pair of quick goals to make it 4-0.
Quinton Tlusty, Ty Baker and Zach Rudolph added goals for Medford in the final 11 minutes of the match.
"They ran out of gas in the second half. We had them at 1-0 for quite a long time and that was pretty impressive," Bates said. "The kids, with the speed and the endurance for Medford, they just couldn't hang with them any more. They ran out of gas.
"We told the kids going into tonight that a lot of them next season, this is the caliber of play we expect them to try to step up to and start learning how to play against kids with this size and this speed. It was a very good learning experience."
Rhinelander was in position to rest key players after clinching the conference title last Tuesday with a 3-2 win over Mosinee. The rest was needed at the end of a grueling, condensed regular season that saw the Hodags play 13 games a span of 31 days. The Hodags don't play again until Saturday night, when they will host the winner of tonight's Hayward-Antigo game at Mike Webster Stadium in a WIAA regional final. Bates said he wants to make sure his team is fresh and ready for a postseason run.
"I honestly believe our kids have a very good opportunity this year to go quite a long way in this tournament," he said.
There's a chance Rhinelander and Medford could cross paths again as the top two teams in their half-sectional grouping. Should both win their games next Saturday - the Raiders will host the winner of today's Lakeland-Ashland game - they would meet a week from Thursday in Rhinelander in a sectional semifinal. The Hodags defeated Medford 1-0 in Rhinelander Sept. 17.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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