Kislow tourney: RHS downs Athens, falls in OT to Everest

The Rhinelander High School girls’ basketball team won one game, and was perhaps a play or two away from winning both last weekend at the Tom Kislow Memorial Tournament at D.C. Everest.

Just two games after setting a program record for most 3s in a game, the Hodags broke it by hitting 16 last Friday morning in a 69-57 victory over Athens. Rhinelander then had a 10-point second half lead but could not withstand a 34-point effort by Everest’s Kirsten Hall Saturday night as the Evergreens roared back to win in overtime, 66-62. 

The loss, and the circumstances that led to it, left an overall sour impression of the weekend for coach Ryan Clark afterward. 

“It’s just a disappointing weekend because I don’t think we’ve gotten much better on the key things we’ve been working on,” he said. “We’ve got to clean up some things, stay out of foul trouble and the biggest thing for us is to see if we can limit some of the mistakes that we’re making. I think it’s just too many self-inflicted wounds that are hurting us too much.”

The 3-ball lifted Rhinelander in Friday’s game. Back-to-back 3s by Dawsyn Barkus and Lily Treder put the Hodags up 14-11 with 10:22 remaining in the first half and the Hodags led the rest of the way. 

The Hodags were up 39-32 at the break, but Athens opened the second on a 6-0 run to cut the lead to one. Aubryn Clark, who led the Hodags with 24 in the game, answered with a 3s that bookended a 14-4 run that put Rhinelander 53-42 with 11:42 to go. 

Treder hit the team’s 15th 3 of the game to put Rhinelander up 60-50 and match the school mark set in the season opening win against Crandon. She then buried No. 16 to give Rhinelander a 65-52 lead with 6:05 remaining.

Treder finished with 18 points in the game and Morgan Van Zile chipped in 11.

“I thought we executed against their 1-3-1 well,” coach Clark said. “We screened the backside, and I thought Morgan had a really nice game. She hit the skip pass for shooters. Lily shot it really well. Leah shot it well, Aubryn shot it pretty well.”

Rhinelander led 32-24 at the half Saturday against D.C. Everest and extended the lead to 37-27 in the opening moments of the second, but Everest climbed back. Hall, who missed just one shot in the second half, capped off a 14-6 run that gave the Evergreens a 47-46 lead with 9:50 left. 

Rhinelander answered and went up 57-52 with 4:43 remaining, but Everest scored the next 6, including a pair of free throws by Hall to up 58-57 with 2:34 to play. Clark knocked down a jumper with 1:05 remaining, and the Hodags had the ball in the final minute after creating a turnover, but miscommunication between Clark and Van Zile led to a Rhinelander turnover with 39.4 seconds left and Megan Zemke hit the game-tying free throw after getting fouled on a putback attempt with 18.3 seconds to play. 

In addition to Hall’s hot shooting, Everest dominated the glass, outrebounding Rhinelander 54-24. 

“We’ve talked about (how) we’ve got to be more physical on the glass, got to battle,” coach Clark said. “I know we’re undersized, but we didn’t play that big of a team today. You’ve got to hit a kid, box a kid out, fight for a board and we just didn’t do that again. We haven’t boxed out in four games.”

The Hodags missed a 3 that would have won the game at the end of regulation. Aubryn Clark made a runner with 1:45 left in overtime to put Rhinelander up 62-61, but Hall was fouled moments later and made both free throws, putting the Evergreens ahead for good. 

Clark finished with 30 in the loss for Rhinelander, the only Hodag to score in double digits.  

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].