Winter Practice Notebook

Things were a lot busier Monday than usual for Rhinelander High School girls’ basketball coach Ryan Clark on the first day of practice.

That’s because there were significantly more people in the gym to start the 2023 season. That stands to reason when a program has a net pickup of 10 incoming freshmen to outgoing seniors. 

That’s the case for the Lady Hodags this year. Though they lost a big piece of last year’s squad in leading scorer Ava Lamers, she was the only senior on the team. While she’s gone, the Hodags welcome in a class of 11 freshmen that have the team’s numbers as high as they’ve been in quite some time.

“It’s been quite a few years, probably back when Audrey Schiek and those guys were sophomores, 2019-20. It’s fun to see,” Clark said. “It’s nice to have where we can have 5-on-5 and have both courts going finally. And it’s a good 5-on-5. 

“The seniors have been fantastic, very inviting-type kids, great leaders. Then the kids coming up, like I told them at the meeting. They don’t need to be led either. They know how to do the right things and they’re excited to play.”

Usually there are some growing pains the first week with a freshman class that large, as it gets accustomed to practicing at the high school level, but that has not been the case this week. The class, led by coach Clark’s oldest daughter, Aubryn, already has a good understanding of what the team does from its youth travel days.

“The freshman group I’ve coached in youth. They know the same drills as the varsity does. We can kind of jump right in and start competing,” coach Clark said. “It’s a good freshman class, a lot of depth and super kids. They have to compete, too. It’s been a long time since we’ve had competition at the JV level and the varsity level. We have competition for minutes at the varsity level and then we have some really good competition between JV-1, JV-2 and the rotation of JV-1 for those freshmen.”

The ability to cover a lot of ground quickly will be vital for the team, which has had two-a-day practices all this week. Clark said the goal was to have a rough sketch of its presses and offense in by the end of the week before diving in and refining each piece. 

The team heads to Wisconsin Dells for a scrimmage Saturday and will open the regular season at home against Crandon this Thursday. That game is the first of five for the Hodags before the calendar hits December.

Hodag hockey adjusting to younger roster

    Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey coach M.J. Laggis draws up a play during practice at the Rhinelander Ice Arena Monday, Nov. 6. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

While coach Clark expects his underclassmen to come in and fill roles right away, coach M.J. Laggis said it will likely take a little while longer for his underclassmen to work into the mix for the RHS boys’ hockey team. 

That was his primary takeaway following Monday’s first practice at the Rhinelander Ice Arena.

“It’s just going to be a work in progress,” he said. “We have to just keep trying to get better every day and make the most of it. Every team’s different and you go through cycles of having really good talent for a while and then that falls off. We’re young, we’re inexperienced and we’ve just got to try to find our way.”

This year’s group has a tough act to follow after the Hodags set a program record of 18 wins a season ago. Rhinelander graduated six seniors, including three of its top four defensemen. The Hodags did get a nice influx of freshmen and sophomores from the bantam level in this year, but Laggis said skill development will be key — especially early in the season. 

“We’ve got about 20 guys. There’s a few we’d like to have out that aren’t out, but it’s a nice group. It’s a nice locker room, pretty good kids. That’s a super, big positive,” he said. “We just have to really, really work on skills and keep it upbeat all year. It’s not how you start, it’s what you look like at the end of the year. Our goal right now is just improvement, solid improvement and how much better can they look in a month.”

Rhinelander will scrimmage again this season but the opponent will be very different. Instead of facing the Wausau East/Merrill co-op, the Hodags will welcome in a team from Simley, Minn. for a preseason skate a week from tonight. 

“That’s going to be an eye-opener when a team from Minnesota comes in next Friday night,” Laggis said of the traditionally hockey-rich state. “They’re going to be solid. We start from there, we learn and then the following week we’re into three games and none of them are going to be easy.”

The Hodags will open the season at home against Shawano/Bonduel Tuesday, Nov. 21.

Hodag gymnasts settling into new digs

    Rhinelander High School gymnastics coaches April Denis, left, and Kristina Aschenbrenner address their team during practice in their new facility at the YMCA of the Northwoods Monday, Nov. 6. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

After years of shuffling around, the Rhinelander High School gymnastics team feels like it now has a permanent home. 

That home opened just a few weeks ago, as the YMCA of the Northwoods christened its new expansion that includes a dedicated space for gymnastics equipment. 

The Hodags’ high school and middle school programs are moving from the Hodag Dome to the new facility. While the dome was an upgrade from the past — when the team would have to set up and tear down equipment on a regular basis in the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium or, before that, the old cafeteria where the Aspirus Community Fitness Center is now located — it was still more of a seasonal solution. The team could have its equipment up during the winter, but would have to tear down come spring. 

There are no such worries in the new facility.

“We are able to have our equipment set up, we can keep it up,” coach Kristina Aschenbrenner said. “We don’t have to worry about gym time. We’re able to work it out, it’s nice.”

Perhaps the biggest upgrade comes with the foam pit installed in the new facility. That’s a luxury Hodag teams have not had in the past and one Aschenbrenner said should yield immediate and long-term dividends in skill level. 

“We had a couple of girls that had been throwing layout dismounts on beam and the were able to just, for the fun of it, start twisting, and they were actually twisting fulls into the pit, because they don’t have to worry about that landing,” she said. “You can get the feeling of twisting without having to fear how you’re going to land safely. We’re going to see some improved skills for sure.”

The ability to practice more technical dismounts and aerial skills should also benefit the team on uneven bars and vault.

“They’re going to be able to throw the skill and, if they don’t land perfectly, they’re completely safe and they’re going to be able to get the feeling of it and start working toward improving it so much faster,” Aschenbrenner said.

After a few down years, Rhinelander is still trying to build back its numbers. With a number of freshmen coming in this season, Aschenbrenner said the team will start with seven or eight gymnasts as opposed to the three that finished the 2022-23 season.

“We have a great freshman class coming in,” she said. “A bunch of gals that were on the middle school team are coming up. We’ll be able to infuse our team with some new people, but not new to gymnastics.”

Aside from the skiing sports, gymnastics has the longest preseason of anyone in winter. The Hodags will not compete until Dec. 9, when they will be able to show off the new facility at the Y publicly for the first time in the annual Snowflake Invitational. 

While five weeks seems like a lot of time, Aschenbrenner said there’s still a lot of ground to cover.

“One month is not a lot of time to start from scratch with routines,” she said. “The biggest push in the next month is just getting floor routines —music, choreographing, putting in skills we can safely do now. Then, throughout the season, working on those upgrades.”

Hodag Alpine going to the snow

    Rhinelander/Northland Pines Alpine ski coach Rod Olson leads an exercise during practice in the Hodag Dome Monday, Nov. 6. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

While a couple of inches of snow around Halloween seemed promising for winter sports enthusiasts, that has all melted away. Add a long-range forecast that calls for a mild and dry end to November, and it could be a long preseason of dryland training for the outdoor winter sports.

“We thought we would get in two weeks of dryland and then be on the snow. Now it looks like we’ll have our typical lots of dryland and hope for snow,” Rhinelander/Northland Pines Alpine ski coach Rod Olson said. 

Luckily for Olson and the team, they already had a backup plan. If the snow won’t come to the Hodags, the Hodags will go to the snow. 

That will be the case as the vast majority of the team takes off late next week for a trip to Winter Park, Colo.

“Between fundraising and being able to have some relationships out there, we got a super low cost,” Olson explained. “We’re able to take a lot of athletes out there, get three days in a row on runs that are 30 times the length (of runs in the Northwoods). We’re pumped about that.”

Olson said 23 skiers between Rhinelander and Northland Pines will make the trip out west. Overall, while the team has solid numbers, he said the split is skewed heavily toward skiers. 

“I think snowboarding is in a low spot, nationally,” he said. “Snowboard sales are low. Everybody else’s programs are the same, they’re low, but skiers seem to be increasing.”

In the meantime, the skiers were in both the Hodag Dome and the Aspirus Fitness Center this week to begin their dryland training.

“We’re going to start with some body weight stuff,” Olson said. “Of course, they think they need to squat 300 but they’re going to have a hard time walking at the end of the night. We’re going to do all of that first and then finish with dead lift.”  

Hodag Nordic welcomes new coach 

    Rhinelander Nordic ski coach Andrew Seaman tracks the action in a game of pillow polo during team practice in the Hodag Dome Tuesday, Nov. 7. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

The Rhinelander Nordic ski team has a new face leading the program in 2023. Andrew Seaman takes over as the program lead after Dave Slette and his family relocated out of the area earlier this fall. 

The departure left the team only a few months to find a replacement and Seaman, a first-year teacher at Pelican Elementary School, stepped up. 

“Everything’s new to me,” Seaman said after Monday’s opening practice in the Hodag Dome. “This is my first year coaching Nordic skiing and my third month in Rhinelander. Everything’s new but I’ve got really supportive assistant coaches that have years of experience. I’m relying on a lot of them for some of the technique stuff and then the conditioning stuff I’ve got down from coaching cross country and track in the past.”

While Seaman, a Merrill native, is new to coaching the sport, he said he has enjoyed it recreationally, and comes in with experience coaching other sports where he previously taught in St. Michael, Minn. 

“I have some of that experience and I also have that love of cross country skiing,” he said. “That was a big part of it. Then my connection with the school, just as far as communication goes and knowing where kids are and when they need to be there. That communication part was huge too.”

Monday’s first practice served as a big of an introductory session as Seaman began to learn his new team, and vice versa. Seaman said the team has 10-11 skiers at the high school level while numbers are in the upper teens at the middle school level. 

“We’ve got a mix of everything, but we got a good workout in today,” he said. “I think a lot of the kids learned each other’s names, got to know each other. That was a big point of the first practice, too.”

The Hodags are at the mercy of Mother Nature as to when they will finally be able to get out onto the trails. Until then, Seaman said the team will likely continue to work on strength and conditioning in the dome while trying to occasionally get out onto the pavement with roller skis to work on technique. 

Weather permitting, the Hodags are slated to open the season Dec. 16 at the WinMan trails in Winchester. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].