October 18, 2021 at 8:49 a.m.
Not good enough?
Hodags saddled with No. 5 seed for playoffs despite 8-1 record, big win in finale
Not good enough?
The Hodags raced out to a commanding 24-0 first-half lead and cruised to a 36-18 victory over the Ashland Oredockers Friday night at Weikal Field. That left the Hodags 8-1 overall on the season, with its only loss coming against GNC-champion Mosinee. Yet the WIAA computers handed the Hodags a No. 5 seed for the Division 3 playoffs, and the Hodags will face another long road trip next Friday night at Baraboo.
"A little disrespected this week, I think we'll feel," Hodag football coach Aaron Kraemer said Saturday morning after the brackets were released. "But, at the same time, you can't control what a computer does and what people with a pen and paper do (drawing regionals groupings). We're going to prepare as we planned on preparing."
That news soured what was otherwise another dominant night for the Hodag offense, which racked up 521 yards on Friday night. Cayden Neri rushed for a career-high 302 yards with four touchdowns as wrapped up a second straight runner-up finish in the Great Northern Conference.
Rhinelander dominated the first quarter and a half of the contest before falling into a lull in the third quarter. Both teams exploded late as Ashland scored all three of its touchdowns in the fourth quarter while the Hodags scored a couple of late touchdowns to keep Ashland, which needed a win to keep its faint playoff hopes alive, from staging a comeback.
The Hodags set the tone early, with a 15-play, 87-yard opening drive that ended with a four-yard run by Neri. After Ashland went three-and-out, the Hodags went 95 yards on seven plays, setting up Neri's second scoring run with 19 seconds remaining in the opening quarter.
"The first drive was the best drive we've put together all season long," Kraemer said. "It was a six- or seven-minute drive. We walked down the field and put it in the end zone. The second drive, to be able to score real quick, was different."
After another Ashland three-and-out, the Hodags needed only two plays to march 85 yards for another score. Neri ran the ball for 32 yards to put Rhinelander near midfield and then Jacksen Smith found a wide open Arik Beske for a 53-yard score.
Momentum started to wane late in the second quarter for Rhinelander. A 27-yard run by Caleb Olcikas gave Rhinelander first and goal from the 1, but following two procedure penalties, and a sack when Smith slipped trying to plant, the Hodags had to settle for a 35-yard field goal by Neri to go up 24-0 with 4:22 remaining in the half.
Ashland's offense found some life after that, marching into the Rhinelander red zone on three straight possessions - all ending with fourth-down incompletions.
The Oredockers finally punched it in early in the fourth quarter. Parker Goodreau scored from four yards out on a drive that began from the Hodag 17 after Rhinelander tried a fake punt deep in its own territory and failed to convert.
The teams traded touchdowns down the stretch. Neri scored from 16 yards out with 5:23 remaining before Ashland answered with a Cody Lustig 48-yard touchdown catch from Kade Jolma. Neri broke off a 60-yard run on the next drive before getting over the 300-yard mark on the ground for the first time in his career on a seven-yard run with 2:13 to play. Ethan Peterson returned the ensuing kickoff 76 yards for a touchdown to wrap up the scoring.
Overall, Rhinelander limited Ashland to 219 yards of offense and held Goodreau - third in the GNC in rushing entering the contest - to only 41 yards on 13 carries.
"The defense played a helluva of a football game, down here (in the red zone) three times and kept them out for no points. That's a statement for our defense," Kraemer said. "They scored three touchdowns, I get it. They had one at the end of the game that was a deep one we just bit on. Just small things we have to work on."
Olcikas added 102 yards on eight carries for the Hodags while Smith was 5 of 7 passing for 98 yards, a touchdown, and an interception that was thrown on a Hail Mary attempt on the final play of the first half.
Tale of two halves
Rhinelander dominated the first half, with 369 yards of offense to Ashland 55 and seemed to do whatever it wanted against an Ashland defense that was ranked fifth in the GNC in yards allowed.
"We played about as good of a game in the first half as we could have," Kraemer said. "A few mistakes that we had to clean up in the first half, but I was very pleased with the way that we played."
However, the script flipped in the third quarter as Rhinelander had three drives that netted a total to two yards. Rhinelander had four penalties on those drives alone.
"In the second half, it seemed that we came out and we were already on the bus," Kraemer said. "We were already planning on going home and playing in the playoffs. I was not really pleased with the way we played in the second half. It was quite embarrassing for me. There's things that we can clean up."
Penalty problems
No. 1 on that list will once again be penalties. Rhinelander was flagged 13 times for 77 yards in the contest - the third straight game the Hodags have committed 10 or more penalties.
"Our guys were jumping offsides and they were calling our motion and it was on first sound, just small things like that," Kraemer said. The first couple drives we shot ourselves in the foot. The fake punt down here is designed to go inside the hashes and we bounced it out to the outside, just small things."
GNC default
Rhinelander entered the night knowing that its hopes for a conference title had vanished. The Hodags needed a win and a Mosinee loss to clinch a share of the conference title, but Antigo - Mosinee's scheduled Week 9 opponent - forfeited the contest Thursday due to a lack of healthy players.
The Indians, who defeated Rhinelander 14-7 in Mosinee Oct. 1, went 7-0 in the GNC, but were the benefactors of forfeit wins over Ashland and Antigo.
Rhinelander, meanwhile, remains in search of its first conference championship since 1989.
"I used that as motivation and I told them that a conference championship is great, but there are a lot of other champion-type things that you can do, including five games from now," Kraemer said, referencing the number of possible games in the WIAA state tournament. "We're excited about the opportunity to take it to the playoffs. They used it as motivation tonight. 8-1 is still a damn good record and I'm very proud of them.
Record book
It appears Neri will finish second in the GNC rushing race this year - with the second most rushing yards in league history. Neri was credited with 1,383 rushing yards in league play but will likely finish behind Medford's Aiden Gardner, who entered Friday night 145 yards ahead of Neri. According to Matt Frey of the Star News, Gardner unofficially finished with 207 yards on 25 carries in Medford's 30-12 win over Merrill. Both Gardner and Neri smashed the previous GNC rushing record of 1,154 yards set by Ean Wilson in a six-game conference season in 2019.
Neri, who scored four touchdowns, kicked three extra points and added a field goal in the contest, broke a conference record for most points scored by a single player in a season, with 144. The previous mark was 102 set by Wilson in 2019.
On the road, again
All of that did not mean much, however, as the WIAA used a computer formula to seed the playoff football bracket for the first time. Rhinelander ended up behind three conference champions or co-champions (Mosinee, Mt. Horeb and Rice Lake) as well as Baraboo (7-2), which finished third in the Badger Small Conference.
It was an odd Division 3 map, as the WIAA decided to keep the five Division 3 qualifiers from the northwestern quarter of the state - Mosinee, Rice Lake, Rhinelander, Medford and Hayward - together. They were paired with Mt. Horeb, Baraboo and Onalaska.
New Richmond, initially projected to be part of the Division 3 field, wound up as the last school in Division 2, based on enrollment, which likely took a team away from a northwestern Wisconsin grouping.
The end result is 8-1 Rhinelander is on the road, while elsewhere in Division 3, Fox Valley Lutheran (5-4) and Waupaca (4-4) host Level 1 contests.
"I'm quite surprised, as an 8-1 team. You look at the rest of the state, there's not one 8-1 team that's on the road this week," Kraemer said. "I'm very surprised. To lose by seven points to the regional No. 1 seed, it's a shocker that we're a No. 5. It's all based on the way regions are drawn and the computer then makes the decision on the seeds based on the eight teams in the region."
The WIAA looked at a number of factors in its computer formulas, but the Hodags may have been hurt by an overall weak Great Northern Conference. Opponents winning percentage and historical conference playoff performance were two metrics in the formula. Despite four wins over playoff teams, Rhinelander had only one win over a team with a winning record (Medford, 5-4). Over the last five years, the GNC is 5-17 in postseason games against schools from other conferences. That includes a forfeit win for Mosinee over Wausau West in last year's WIAA culminating event.
"It is what it is. We can't control the way the region is drawn. We can't control the way that a computer uses an algorithm to place teams in a bracket," Kraemer said. "We're going to take this experience and take this opportunity, do the best we can and come out the other side. And, hopefully, we'll be getting another shot at Mosinee next week."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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