February 1, 2021 at 10:01 a.m.
HISTORIC RUN
Hodag hockey takes down Pines, Mosinee to claim first-ever conference title
HISTORIC RUN
Joe Schneider scored four times and the Hodags knocked off second-seeded Mosinee 5-3 at Marathon Park to win the Great Northern Conference tournament championship.
To earn the right to call itself a conference champ, the Hodags had to go through the two other co-champions - upsetting top-seeded Northland Pines 5-2 Thursday night in Eagle River before taking down the Indians for the first time in their last six tries.
"To say I'm emotional would be an understatement," Rhinelander coach M.J. Laggis said afterward. "It's been a long, tough pull trying to get our program where we want it to be. It's a credit to the kids and the parents and the community. I know that sounds like a cliche, but we're really trying to build a winning tradition here and a hockey community. I just feel like we're on that right track, big time."
The euphoria spilled over in the final moments on Saturday as the Hodags capped off their tournament run. The team spent plenty of time on the ice afterward, celebrating with the tournament championship trophy, the result of winning its final five conference games in a row.
"I've been dreaming about being part of a conference champion for years," coach Laggis said. "The kids were awesome. They were saying stuff to me in the huddle that I didn't expect them to say. That gets you a little bit emotional when kids are hugging, grabbing you and telling you that they love you. That's awesome and I feel the same way about them."
"It honestly just feels surreal," senior captain Jake Losch said. "We definitely got the team to do it this year, I knew from the beginning. We've got a pretty young team but there's so much talent. For Hodag hockey, it's only up from here. It's only going up."
Rhinelander 5, Mosinee 3
Rhinelander's top line of Joe Schneider, Harlan Wojtusik and Joey Belanger - held silent in a pair of two-goal losses to Mosinee earlier in the season - turned the tables on Saturday night.
The line tallied six points in the game as Rhinelander rallied after surrendering the first goal of the game to lead much of the contest.
Schneider scored goals 26, 27, 28 and 29 on the season, each one bringing Rhinelander that much closer to history.
"Before the game the coaches told us to get shots on net and that's just what I did," Schneider said. "Luckily for me all the pucks that I shot were just finding there way to the back of the net. I couldn't have done it without all my teammates passing me the puck."
Schneider broke a 1-1 tie late in the first period as defenseman JC Adams flipped the puck along the boards, springing the Hodag junior on a breakaway. Schneider did the rest, giving the Hodags the lead for good at the 13:56 mark of the opening period.
Schneider struck again with time winding down the first period and the Hodags on the power play. Down in the corner, Schneider threw the puck toward goal in an attempt to beat the buzzer. The puck deflected off the traffic in front of the net and found its way home to give Rhinelander a 3-1 lead with 2.6 seconds remaining in the period.
"I probably wouldn't have thrown it on net, if it wasn't for Jake (Losch)," Schneider said. "Jake said, 'Shoot the puck.' so I just shot it and, luckily, it found its way to the net."
Schneider again gave Rhinelander a lift early in the third with the team clinging to a 3-2 lead. He tipped in a Wojtusik shot from the point just 25 seconds into the frame. Mosinee's Caden Schmirler got the Indians back to within one a short time later, but Schneider put the exclamation point on his night with 6:22 remaining as he slipped in off the left face-off circle and beat Mosinee's Tucker Stepan one final time.
"Joe Schneider was incredible tonight," coach Laggis said. "So was Harlan Wojtusik and that line played great. Joey Belanger had his best game of the year, I think. I was very pleased with the energy on Jake Losch's line, and Leo (Losch) and Cal (Laggis). Carter Detienne gave us some great shifts. Gavin Denis gave us a big one, Finn (Tulowitzky) was good on the power play. I'm talking about those guys because they're not getting a lot of ice on the freshman, sophomore level there, but when they did, they got the job done tonight."
Mosinee called timeout with 2:27 to play and pulled Stepan with an offensive zone face-off, but the Indians were never able to generate much pressure with the extra attacker as Rhinelander salted away the final moments of the game.
It was part of a strong defensive night for the Hodags. They held Schmirler, who entered the game with 26 goals, to a single point and limited Mosinee (14-4-1) to only 17 shots on goal.
"I can't say enough about our defensemen," coach Laggis said. "They've grown as a group. JC Adams has earned the captain(cy) and he's a leader of that core. Sam Schneider's got as good of hands and they get and Layne (Roeser) tucked a puck home that was enormous tonight."
Roeser got Rhinelander (13-6-0) going after the Hodags surrender an Eli Miland goal from just inside the red line 4:21 into the contest. In the dying moments of a power play, Roeser sent a shot from inside the blue line that beat a screened Stepan top shelf to tie the game.
Rhinelander outshot Mosinee 39-17, but had to skate with a one-goal lead virtually all of the second period after Russell Bittner beat Garrett Kulhanek top shelf from just inside the blue line only 18 seconds into the period.
"Garrett got in a little trouble there on those high pucks and that's something we've just got to keep working on with our goaltenders," coach Laggis said. "That's just a fluky kind of a thing. On the flip side of that, he made some key, key saves in tight spaces down the stretch. He answered big."
Rhinelander 5, Northland Pines 2
Kulhanek dazzled in net Thursday night with 19 saves and Cal Laggis scored twice in the third period as the Hodags knocked off the Eagles for the second time this year after being winless against Northland Pines since 1991.
The only difference between Thursday night's win and the 5-2 win the Hodags had at the Eagle River Sports Arena back on Dec. 3 was that Rhinelander never trailed this time around. In both instances, the Hodags put the game away thanks to three third-period goals.
Cal Laggis had a hand in all three of the third-period tallies as Rhinelander's second line carried the load down the stretch. He scored the Hodags' first short-handed goal of the season 1:37 into the third to put Rhinelander up 3-1, added a helper on a Jake Losch tally at the 8:12 mark and then finished a 2-on-1 chance with Jake Losch at the 11:15 mark to give the Hodags a four-goal lead.
"We needed them to come alive," coach Laggis said of the Hodags' second line. "Any team is going to key on Harlan and Joe with the amount of points that they have, so you needed that line to come alive and they did.
"I thought Cal was outstanding tonight. He handled that puck. He was gritty on the boards and it's not like Cal won the game, I'm not saying that, but he played about as gritty as you can play. That shorty was outstanding."
Joe Schneider got the scoring started 13:29 into the opening period as he received a pass from Belanger, ducked a Northland Pines check attempt along the blue line, walked in off the right faceoff circle and scored.
Leo Losch gave Rhinelander a brief 2-0 lead at the 6:40 mark of the second, but Pines answered 19 seconds later as Matthew Szafranski put a faceoff win on the, that caromed off a Rhinelander player to sneak in the top-left corner.
Max Brown added a power play goal for the Eagles with 4:07 remaining, but it was too little to late for Northland Pines, which lost only two GNC games this season - both to the Hodags.
"I'm sure Northland Pines doesn't feel like they played their best game, but we didn't either," coach Laggis said. "We made a lot of mistakes. We threw the puck around a lot. We took some very undisciplined penalties and that's not how you want to finish a game. That aside, our kids played very gritty on the kill, made a lot of clears and played hard together. At the end of the day, that's what you're looking for, for those guys to just play gritty hockey."
Northland Pines outshot Rhinelander 21-18 in a game that had more quality scoring chances than the final shot count indicated. Kulhanek was called upon to make several key saves, including three on short-handed breakaway chances for Northland Pines, to keep the Eagles at bay.
"We wanted to get him on track and he made some big saves early," coach Laggis said. "He held us in there, I thought, in those first few minutes. Instead of giving up a goal right away early on, he held us in there and made a lot of plays. That's huge. He needed to have that kind of a night."
Three-way split
The overall conference championship will be split three ways between Rhinelander, Northland Pines and Mosinee. The Hodags won the GNC tournament, Northland Pines was the regular season champion and the conference determined Mosinee would have had the most combined points between the regular season and conference tournament. All three teams went 8-2-0 in league play combining regular season and conference tournament play.
Up next
After one exciting tournament run, the Hodags have to gear up to do it all again as the WIAA tournament commences Thursday night.
If the Hodags are going to make a postseason run, their path will almost certainly mirror the one they just took to win the GNC tournament. Rhinelander opens at home Thursday night against Waupaca - which it beat 7-5 last Tuesday to open the GNC tourney - and would almost certainly face top-seeded Northland Pines next Tuesday with a win. The sectional final is next Saturday in Mosinee, where a rematch with Mosinee or Lakeland would be a distinct possibility.
"This was essentially a dress rehearsal for the playoffs," Losch said. "This is exactly what we had to do. This is exactly what we've to come out and do starting (Thursday). We'll be ready for it."
"Now we've got to try to keep the energy going," coach Laggis said. "Everyone's coming after everyone in the playoffs. I don't care if it's Waupaca, Pines, Lakeland, Mosinee, there's just nothing easy."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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