March 22, 2023 at 8:21 a.m.
Spring practice notebook
RHS girls' soccer ready for big season
Spring practice notebook
In fact, Bates called the offseason commitment the best he's seen in three years at the helm of the girls' program.
"They were pretty hungry, seeing what the boys did this year and they want to try to do it," Bates said. "There was a lot of offseason commitment this year, which was really, really cool to see - a lot of conditioning done, a lot of captains' practices were going on. It was great to see this year that they had a lot of that going on."
The Hodag girls were a close second to eventual state qualifier Lakeland last spring in the Great Northern Conference and with a good number of pieces returning from that squad, there is certainly motivation to make a deep run this year. That motivation is also driven by the fact that Rhinelander has dropped back from Division 2 to Division 3 this season.
"We've got a group that's been playing together for quite a few years now. Last year we lost some girls, but we have a lot of returning starters from last season as well, which is really cool to see," Bates said. "We had some young girls last year that really killed it. I'm excited to see what they bring to the table this year."
Rhinelander will open against a couple of sectional opponents - Hayward and Shawano - April 1 in the Hodag Dome. The team's scheduled to scrimmage Three Lakes this Tuesday in the Dome. That leaves a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time.
"There's a lot of ground to cover, but the good thing is, this year, we truthfully have only a handful of freshmen that came in," Bates said. "A lot of it's returning players that we're pretty familiar with, how they play the game. That's a good thing. We don't have a whole lot of new coming in right now this year. The couple that we do, I've also seen play at the middle school level. We have a pretty good idea on a lot of the girls already."
Because of that, much like the boys' team last fall, the Hodag girls can move more quickly from some of the basics and get into to more advanced skills and tactics.
"We're going to go over tactics right away today and skill stuff," Bates said Monday. "We're going to pick that up and start putting the pieces together of who fits where. We obviously have some good ideas based off of what we saw last year but we're going to hit the ground running. We're going to get at it right away. We've got some two-a-days coming up. We're going to cram a lot in here in the next two weeks."
Baseball loading up on early practices
The WIAA affords baseball teams a week of pitcher and catcher instruction prior to the official start of practice. The Hodag baseball team used all of that time, and will use some more to try to get, essentially, an entirely new pitching staff ready for the 2023 season.
Junior Max Ratty is the only returning player who saw meaningful innings on the mound either last spring or last summer at the varsity level. Because of that, the Hodags have added some extra morning practices for pitchers and catchers this week and next week in an effort to try to accelerate the learning curve ahead of a scheduled season-opening doubleheader at Wisconsin Rapids next Friday.
"We're very young there. Without a doubt we need to focus and hone those pitchers in - again just creating routines and building from there," coach Joe Waksmonski said. "And we're building all kinds of things, whether it's arm strength, arm endurance and then probably, more importantly, pitch repertoire - curveballs, change-ups, locating your fastballs, throwing different types of fastballs - talking about philosophies and things like that."
In general, Rhinelander has a younger squad than most seasons thanks to last year's senior class that carried the load both during the high school season in the spring and the American Legion season in the summer.
"We did not have a lot of our younger players playing a lot of innings in Legion," Waksmonski said. "I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I think it's a good thing that we had a good, veteran Legion team. They made a nice run to state and it's great for our program. But, along the same lines, a lot of our young guys did not get the usual experience they would have gotten last summer."
Because of the youth, practice time before the season opening games will be critical. Monday's opening practice included the team's traditional skills combine, but also jumped into some defensive drills, long toss progressions and base running.
Waksmonski said the most important objective over the next couple of weeks will be the ability to establish a routine.
"For older guys, it's easier for them. It's knocking off the rust, so to speak," he said. "But then, for our younger guys, it takes a little bit getting used to coming to practice and having something to work on and something to look forward too. They're kind of used to some of their younger, youth practices where you might not necessarily have a focus. When you get into the high school level, now you're working to the finer points of positional work and some of the finer points of your hitting."
With baseball and soccer practice underway, only two teams have yet to begin preparations for the upcoming seasons. The Hodag golf and boys' tennis teams will be able to start practice this coming Monday.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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