August 17, 2022 at 2:15 p.m.
Notebook: Hodag boys' soccer adds practice due to late schedule change
Notebook: Hodag boys' soccer adds practice due to late schedule change
The Hodags picked up a non-conference game against Wausau East for this coming Tuesday, the first day competitions are allowed by the WIAA for the 2022 boys' soccer season. The catch is the team needs to have seven days of practice in before the first competition and it cannot practice on more than six consecutive days. That meant the only way the team would be able to meet the practice requirement to play next Tuesday was to get in an impromptu practice Monday evening.
"With a last-minute game added to the schedule we had to rearrange some things because they weren't lining up, but it's OK," Hodag coach Nathan Bates said. "I contacted one of our captains, contacted the parents and everything and we pulled something together. We'll have a pretty good turnout tonight and then, tomorrow morning, we'll start full bore and get into the stuff getting ready for the season."
The Hodags tied for third in a competitive Great Northern Conference last year. The majority of that squad returns as the team graduated only four seniors. Bates said he was impressed with the level of commitment showed during the summer in open field and in a pair of U18 tournaments.
"We had a really good turnout this summer," he said. "We did the Oshkosh tournament and the boys ended up in second place in the championship there. Then we did the Duluth tournament and we lost one game in that tournament, taking third. All and all we had a really good summer with the boys and they had some good success against some really tough competition throughout the state and Minnesota on top of it."
All of that is allowing the team to hit the ground running this week. The less time needed to drill fundamentals in ball skills equals more time available to work on formations and tactics for the upcoming season.
"It's a lot easier with this group," Bates said. "This group has been playing together for the last eight, nine years. They know each other very well. They've been playing together a long time. Myself and Adam (Wiese) have been coaching them for many, many years. It's a little easier because we know the kids so well and they've been playing together for so long. It should come together fairly quick."
Next Tuesday's opener is on the road at Wausau East. The Hodags will be home Aug. 27 to take on Hayward and Waupaca in an non-conference invite at Mike Webster Stadium.
Volleyball: Hodags add to coaching staff
As Dan Wolter begins his second season as head coach of the RHS volleyball program, he will have another coach with varsity experience to bounce ideas off of.
Former Three Lakes head coach Jayme Wyss has come on board and will help the Hodags this fall in a limited capacity.
"We're excited to have her on board to help out with skill development and just bring kind of a new perspective to things in our program. Looking at her past success, I think it will be a big help," Wolter said. "She can kind of help me out and I can help her and we can start to build this from the ground up like we've been trying to do the past couple of years and get things going in the right direction."
The extra coaching help comes at a welcome time for a program that is once again big on numbers, especially in the younger classes. Wolter said the team had approximately 50 girls on the roster to start the season, but only five seniors.
Monday and Tuesday were spent conducting tryouts to determine which players would end up on the program's varsity, JV, JV-2 and JV-3 teams. From there, preparations started for the team's scrimmage this Saturday at home against Rib Lake as well as next Tuesday's season-opening quadrangular against Chequamegon, Hurley and Elcho in the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.
"Ball control is always the biggest point of emphasis for us," Wolter noted. "If we can stay in system and get our setters a good ball and have the opportunity to set up all three front row hitters, that's to our advantage. Serve-receive is going to be a big focus today, tomorrow, the rest of the week and then just kind of building off of that and going from there. We're going to focus a little on defense as well, making sure we're where we need to be to stay in rallies."
The Hodags are also hopeful that the first full offseason program in three years will help lead to more success on the court. COVID-19 protocols limited the team to only a handful of skill development sessions in 2020. Wolter was not hired until last July, limiting last summer's offseason program.
"Summer went very well. We had a lot of girls coming in, utilizing the lifting program and the open gyms out in the dome, getting some actual, live play in the Tomahawk League. Hopefully that's beneficial. It's a tough league over there. Hopefully we can use some of that stuff that we learned there and picked up on and carry it into the season," Wolter said.
Cross country: Playing the numbers game again
The RHS boys' cross country team qualified for state for the first time in more than two decades last year. At the start of this season, it could be nip and tuck whether the Hodags will be able to field a full varsity squad.
The Hodags graduated five seniors off of that team and head coach M.J. Laggis said, as of the team's first practice on Monday, the team had "seven, eight boys" out with seven varsity positions to fill. However, Laggis noted the team typically has a habit of picking up a few runners as the season gets into full swing.
"It was like that last year as well and we finished like rock stars but we've got a long way to go, that's very evident right away today," he said. "It's been kind of a weird thing the last three, four years where we start the year with about 19-20 (athletes overall) and we seem to end the year with about 31-32. We had 20 here today, 26 on the roster, but I'm hoping to have that number to be 30 or 30-plus when we're done."
The girls' numbers are strong and Laggis said he's hopeful that, with a number of runners returning and a few coming back from injury that the Hodag girls can be a surprise team in the Great Northern Conference like the Hodag boys were last year.
"We have that nucleus of girls that there's some ability there," he said. "We've got to keep them healthy and out of the injury realm and get them to keep improving. They're young still. There's a lot there. We've just got to keep moving. They'll be improved from last year, there's no doubt. That's one of those groups that could be a formidable force in a while here at the end of the year."
Overall, Laggis said the first week and a half of practice is about getting everyone up to speed, both in terms of the running workouts as well as the team's weight room program. While attendance at both team- and player-organized runs this summer improved, there some discrepancy in where the athletes are at in terms of fitness level entering the season.
"We've got to get the mileage built up. We're trying to increase the mileage per week by about five miles again," Laggis said. "We've been on a steady goal, coach (Melissa) Krueger and I, to continue to up the mileage, but that's a coming of age. A program has to be ready for that. We've done that slow and we're trying to add mileage. Again, we have a mix of experience, guys like the (returning sophomore) Greyson Grembans who just have hundreds of miles under their belt this summer and kids that are really green and don't have the miles."
The Hodags open the season at home with the Hodag Invite in front of Rhinelander High School next Thursday.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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