November 8, 2022 at 1:40 p.m.
Winter practice notebook
Hodag girls' hoops starts with young squad
Winter practice notebook
Keeping that string intact this year may be easier said than done as Clark enters his 10th season with one of the younger squads he has had during his time in Rhinelander.
"We're a very brand new team," Clark said after Monday morning's first practice in the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. "I feel like the last however many years we've had so many returning letter winners or a lot of experience coming back. This year, it's like so many young kids' first time really on varsity."
The learning curve will be steep and it will come fast for a program that is light on numbers, too. Clark said the team will end up with around 16 to 18 players total between the varsity and JV ranks when all is said and done. On top of that, Clark said the Hodags enter with a new offensive philosophy this year - taking more of a half-court dribble-drive approach.
Clark said he's making that switch with an eye toward the future.
"I think it fits our personnel, and it's really going to fit it going forward," he said. "This year we might struggle because it does expose your weaknesses on handling the basketball, making quick decisions. We're still going to throw in some wrinkles to meet our personnel.
"It's a little bit of a learning curve, a whole new offense. It's going to require us to be very skilled because we're not very tall and we're going to have to shoot it well as well."
Rhinelander returns only one starter, Ava Lamers, from a team that went 16-10 last year. Junior Lily Treder returns after being the team's sixth player last year. Behind that, there is not much to speak of in terms of varsity experience.
There's not a lot of time to prepare, either. The team scrimmages at Edgar tomorrow before beginning the regular season a week from tonight in Crandon.
"We'll work on press offense, press break, throw in our defenses, throw in our whole offense," Clark said. "Starting probably late this week and, for sure next week, we'll go back and clean it up. I want to get us a good look to see what we can do in the scrimmage, expose us quickly, and then obviously be ready for Crandon in a week and a half."
Boys' hockey: Hodags get a helping hand
Another Rhinelander High School alum was on the ice helping the Hodag boys' hockey team as practice started on Monday.
Bryan Kronberger, who was part of the 2009 Hodag squad that reached a sectional semifinal and played in the NAHL with the Janesville Jets and collegiately at Concordia-Moorhead (Minn.), was on the ice, helping with instruction.
Hodag head coach M.J. Laggis said the team will utilize Kronberger's expertise a couple of times per week while he balances his work schedule.
"I'm a big believer of using every resource I can get my hands on. Just great to have him out here helping us," Laggis said. "We get him two days a week up until tax season, but it's really nice to have him out here and we're trying to utilize him every Monday and Friday the best that we can."
Nearing three decades now at the helm of the Hodags, Laggis said he's still excited as ever to get out onto the ice for Day 1 of practice.
"I'm just pumped. I don't know, this is year 28 or 29 or something like that and I'm just pumped to be here and making the most of it," he said. "I woke up this morning and all I kept thinking about was just being lucky to be able to coach these guys and to make the most you can out of every chance you get."
While the Hodags did not graduate a ton of seniors from last year, the ones they lost were impactful - including their top two goalies Garrett Kulhanek and Caleb Shefveland. Laggis said establishing depth is the team's No. 1 priority.
"The biggest thing is trying to find an identity, what we're made of," he said. "We know we've got 3-4 really nice defensemen, but we've got to find our depth. We've got to find out what we're like, goaltending-wise. There's a lot of questions right there and just kind of get an identity of how we're going to play and how we're going to look."
The Hodags will scrimmage the Wausau East/Merrill co-op a week from today at the Rhinelander Ice Arena and will open the 2022-23 season with a holiday invite at Amery Nov. 25 an 26.
"We'll know a lot more at the end of this week, a lot more at the end of the scrimmage and then, of course, the holiday tournament we'll really find out where we're at," Laggis said.
Gymnastics: Aschenbrenner settles in as new coach
Though she has held the position for several months, Monday was Kristina Aschenbrenner's first official in-season day as head coach for the Rhinelander High School gymnastics team. She takes over for Heather Sturtevant, who stepped down following the end of last season.
"If feels good. Everything's coming together, last minute, but it's coming together. I think we are ready to go," Aschenbrenner said.
Already the biggest benefit for the Hodags is that of added numbers. Due to injuries and attrition, the team finished with four gymnasts at the end of last season, the minimum required to field a full team score. Rhinelander has nearly double that now, thanks to a number of incoming freshmen.
"We have four new freshmen who all competed in middle school. They've been in our feeder programs, locally here," Aschenbrenner said. "They're going to bring a great energy and excitement to gymnastics and then we have three returning gymnasts that have a great background and can do all-around as well, so we have a solid team."
More than any other indoor winter sport, the gymnastics team has the luxury of time on its side. Though practice began Monday the team's first competition is not until Dec. 17 when it will host the Snowflake Invitational in the Hodag Dome. That invite is a week later than normal this year. Because of that, Aschenbrenner said, the team has been able to ease its way back into practice this week.
"We're only doing three days of practice where we're actually getting in uniform and doing gymnastics and then the other two days, Wednesday and Friday, we're going to have classroom," she said. "We're going to sit down and go over the requirements for each event. We're going to build routines. We're going to talk music, choreography. It will be nice to ease into it without the feeling that we have to get going right away."
When taking the job, Aschenbrenner said she wanted to promote a more holistic approach to the program - from the youth ranks up to the high school level. To that end the high school squad will have its James Williams Middle School counterparts practicing along side them once the middle school season begin next week.
"The plan is to have high school come in a little earlier, get warmed up, get going, get off to the routines and then have middle school come in," Aschenbrenner said. "We did group lessons this summer. The energy was great. The high school girls really took the opportunity to help out the middle school girls. I'm really excited for this setup that we have this season."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
WEATHER SPONSORED BY
E-Editions
Latest News
E-Editions
Events
August
To Submit an Event Sign in first
Today's Events
No calendar events have been scheduled for today.
Comments:
You must login to comment.