February 8, 2021 at 8:44 a.m.
Medford beats RHS 43-41 in playoff preview
Medford beats RHS 43-41 in playoff preview
Medford held off Rhinelander in the undercard bout Friday night 43-41 at Raider Hall. The teams meet again tonight to begin the WIAA tournament.
Both meetings between Rhinelander and Medford have been hard-fought, low-scoring affairs. The Hodags took Round 1 in Rhinelander 41-38 last month.
"I think it's going to be a battle. I think both teams are very comfortable they can win that game," Rhinelander coach Ryan Clark said looking ahead to tonight's rubber match with a trip to top-seeded Mosinee in the balance.
On Friday, Rhinelander rallied from down 10 with 9:27 to play to tie the game with just more than three minutes to play. The teams traded buckets down the stretch. With Rhinelander down 42-41 with under 10 seconds to play, the Hodags tried to hit Rebecca Lawrence in transition but Medford's Marissa Fronk stepped in to get a tie up and Brynn Fronk hit one of two free throws on the other end.
Lawrence's desperation three-quarter court heave to win it finished well off the mark as time expired.
"We got her in transition, got her up ahead, but they called a jump ball," Clark said of what proved to be the decisive turnover in Friday night's game. "(Fronk) kind of went through Rebecca from behind it looked like. Rebecca got kind of taken out. That was a tough one. I'm OK with the tie up if it's our possession, but that's a tough way (to lose)."
Lawrence scored a game-high 21 points, including the first seven of the contest, but Medford answered back with 11 in a row to take a lead it would never relinquish. The Raiders led 19-14 at the break and pushed the lead to 32-22 midway through the second on the strength of a 13-4 run.
Clark said, in addition to 14 first-half turnovers, his team struggled to turn Medford over in the press and the Raiders made Rhinelander pay, with four first-half 3s.
"We pressed OK, but in scramble situations we struggled to match back up in the half court," he said. "No. 22 (Autumn Krause) hit two 3s in the first half on us and then Marissa Fronk hit a tough one off the drive."
Rhinelander responded on a 12-2 run, capped off by an Annika Johnson 3-point play to tie the game at 34 with 3:29 to play, but Katie Brehm answered with two free throws followed by a Rynn Ruesch basket to put Medford back up by four.
Lawrence finished with 21 points and seven rebounds for Rhinelander, which was 36.6% from the field (15 of 41) and only 8 of 17 from the foul line. Johnson chipped in nine fore Rhinelander. Marissa and Brynn Fronk had nine and eight points, respectively, to lead a balanced Medford attack. Krause and Ruesch each scored seven.
Clark said he's not sure what to expect out of Medford this evening, given that the Raiders primarily played zone defense in the first meeting and almost exclusively man-to-man on Friday.
"We've got to clean a few things up," he said. "We've got to do a little better in our post defense. We got sealed too many times. It wasn't much but, in a close game like this, if we can take away two or three post ups that might be the difference."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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