Despite losing top scorer, Lady Hodags optimistic for 2023

The Rhinelander High School girls’ basketball team knows it has some big shoes to fill once the season rolls around in November, as last year’s leading scorer Ava Lamers has graduated.

Regardless, with a number of players from the rotation due back, plus a promising incoming freshman class, coach Ryan Clark was optimistic at the end of last season that his team would not skip a beat. 

That sentiment remains the same as the team enters the home stretch of its summer program. 

The Lady Hodags held three of their allotted coaching contact days last Monday through Wednesday at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. In addition to those workouts the team has participated in a couple of weekend tournaments this summer, took part in the D.C. Everest Summer League on Tuesday nights and still has one more tournament coming up this weekend in Neenah.

“Attitude’s been great, the kids are awesome and I think we’re getting better,” Clark told the River News last week. “We already kind of know what our strengths are as a team. We’ve got a few kids that can really shoot the basketball, a couple kids than can handle it. We’re just working on individual development. I told the girls if we each get better, individually, as a team we’ll collectively grow.”

Clark noted that the varsity group fared very well last month during a tournament held at Michigan Tech in Houghton, going 2-1 against some tough competition from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Undoubtedly the Hodags will miss Lamers, who led the Great Northern Conference in scoring last year and was Rhinelander’s top scorer overall at 23.5 points per game. But the good news is that Lamers was the only senior on last year’s squad. 

Much of last year’s starting lineup will now be seniors, including Lily Treder, who scored 12.1 points per game and shot a team-best 38.7% from 3-point range. Leah Jamison (6.8 ppg) and Morgan Van Zile (6.0 ppg) will also be seniors, as well as Tori Riopel, who broke into the starting lineup during the second half of the year after junior-to-be Kelsey Winter went down with a season-ending knee injury. 

Clark said that core group of returning players has stood out so far this summer. 

“Lily Treder can definitely score the basketball and shoot it. Leah Jamison can really shoot the basketball. Morgan is able to get to the rim a lot,” he said. “Tori filled in really well. Kelsey Winter’s been at everything, but just not able to play. When we add her to the mix, that will be nice. Kelsi Beran’s gotten better, Makenna (Sternitzky), Eva Hetland, they’ve been great.”

The team also is slated to welcome in a freshman class that had success at the middle school and youth levels. Clark’s daughter, Aubryn, and Ava Lamers’ younger sister, Vivian, headline the group of incoming ninth graders and will likely have a shot to make an impact in the varsity rotation right away this winter. 

“Vivian is an unbelievable defender. Aubryn can really handle the basketball and run our show for us. Everyone kind of fits in around those two,” coach Clark said. “My incoming freshmen have been very committed and are doing very well. Most of them will be on JV. Some of them will get some varsity time — Vivian and Aubryn for sure, but the following year, we’ll be a lot of sophomore with a couple of seniors sprinkled in, but they’ll be very good.”

One thing the Hodags still do not have much of is height — which will be an issue against the likes of defending GNC champion Lakeland which is set to return multiple players at 6-feet or taller.

“Our rebounding has been an issue,” coach Clark said. “Our lack of size we can’t really control. We’re pretty small, so one thing we need to do a better job at when we play in the Neenah tournament at the end of July is we’ve got to be more scrappy. I think our scrappiness has been hit or miss too often. We’re not big enough to do that. We’ve got to be battling for all of those possessions — especially on the hustle plays and the rebounding.” 

Clark said last week’s team contact days focused primarily on individual skills, especially shooting, with some 3-on-3 and 4-on-4 play mixed in. 

The days were also dual-purpose sessions for coach Clark, who ran a youth camp for incoming fourth-through-eighth graders in conjunction with contact days. 

“The kids are excited to be in the gym,” he said of youth camp. “We I put this out, a lot of the parents said the kids were waiting for it and hoping that we’d do it. Really good energy in the gym. What’s nice is a lot fo the kids that we’ve worked with — like our fourth-grade travel team and our sixth-grade travel team — pretty much all those kids have come. It’s kind of nice to see some of these youth kids who have a good team chemistry going in their grades, they all come to the camp together and are just having fun.”

Winter practice for the Lady Hodags will begin Nov. 6. The Hodags are currently scheduled to open the regular season at home Nov. 16 against Crandon.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].