Lady Hodags pull away from Tomahawk, win 67-31

The Rhinelander High School girls’ basketball team took control late in the first half last Friday night to cruise past Tomahawk 67-31 in a battle of surprising undefeated teams in the GNC in Tomahawk.

The Hatchets, who were off to a 2-0 start in the GNC — their first wins in conference play since 2019 — hung with Rhinelander early in the game. But the Hodags, led by the 1-2 punch of Aubryn Clark and Vivian Lamers, used a 24-2 run over the final 7:10 of the first half to build a 43-16 lead at the break and cruised from there. 

“I say slow start, but not from like lack of preparation or lack of energy,” Hodag coach Ryan Clark said. “Just Tomahawk, they’re much improved than they’ve been the last few years. I thought they were just playing just well, executing well against pressure. But, to the girls credit, we can put in multiple different presses and try multiple different things, and we did a pretty good job executing.”

Aubryn Clark scored 29 to lead all scorers while Lamers had 18 for the Hodags (7-1, 4-0 Great Northern). They combined to score 18 points in the Hodags’ decisive first-half run, which started with a Lamers drive down the lane with 7:10 left in the half and ended on left-wing 3 by Clark with 41 seconds before the break.

Ella Miljevich added seven points for Rhinelander and senior Reese Gehrig had six points as she made both of her 3-point attempts late in the game.

Six-foot junior Freya Alberg scored 13 points to lead the Hatchets (4-3, 2-1 Great Northern), who held leads of 2-0 and 6-5 early in the contest. Rhinelander seemingly took control with a 9-0 spurt which included a four-point play by Lamers who hit a free throw after getting fouled on a made 3 with 13:06 left in the half, but Tomahawk answered with an 8-5 push capped off by a couple of Alberg free throws to make it 19-14 with 8:12 left in the half.

“I give Tomahawk credit. We started in our 1-2-2 press, and I thought we executed pretty well, but they put their big forward Freya (Alberg) in the middle, and they were breaking through it,” coach Clark said. “We switched to our 2-1-2, and we put Aubryn in the middle and just take away the middle, and then Vivian and Ella did really nice job as the guards. I think, from that point we had a nice long run and got going.”

Coach Clark said the Hatchets stuck in man-to-man the whole game, something the Hodags haven’t seen a ton of this year with a number of teams diverting extra personnel to slow down Aubryn Clark — who’s averaging 24 points per game through the first third of the season. 

“That was good to see and just get some more reps because like I said we have not seen man very often this year so have an opportunity to run that was good for us,” coach Clark said.

The Hodags shot 41.8% (28 of 67) and were 7 of 23 from beyond the arc. Tomahawk was held to 34.2% (13 of 38) from the field and committed 36 turnovers. Rhinelander outscored Tomahawk 20-2 in transition and 38-6 in points off turnovers.

“I’m proud of the girls we’ve been coaching them hard, really trying to get better. We put a lot on their plate and really happy with the outcome so far,” coach Clark said. 

Rhinelander hits the road this weekend for a pair of games in Wisconsin Dells. The Hodags face Ripon (1-6, 0-3 East Central) this afternoon before taking on undefeated Wisconsin Dells (6-0, 1-0 South Central) tomorrow. 

“Ripon I’ve seen them on tape. That’s a game we can get, but you go forward, and the Dells are a really nice, solid basketball team,” coach Clark said. “So really nice to have them and that level competition before we hit conference play again when we play Mosinee and Lakeland.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].