Hodag tennis wraps up undefeated GNC season

The Rhinelander High School boys’ tennis team is in the driver’s seat as it looks to wrap up its 10th straight Great Northern Conference championship this Thursday.

The Hodags concluded a perfect dual meet season on Wednesday, sweeping doubles and splitting singles play in a 5-2 victory at Medford. 

Rhinelander followed that up with a 3-2 weekend down in Sheboygan in its final non-conference invite of the season.

Wednesday’s victory put the Hodags a perfect 5-0 in conference duals and 29-6 in individual matches within conference play. That assured Rhinelander of at least a six-point lead over second-place Lakeland heading into Thursday’s conference tournament in Rhinelander. The lead could be more, depending on how Lakeland fared against Antigo Monday in a match that concluded after press time for today’s edition. 

“One of the goals is to win conference. This brought us to 5-0 in the dual and sets us up really nicely to achieve that goal on Thursday,” Hodag coach Matt Nichols said.

Even down a couple of starters, the Hodags still cruised in doubles play on Wednesday. Dawson Pontell stepped in for Joey Belanger again at No. 1 doubles and teamed with fellow senior Dalton Fritz to control Parker Hill and Mason Reimann 6-0, 6-1. Michael Schiek stepped in at Pontell’s No. 2 spot with Gavin Denis and the pair took care of Caleb Egle and Keagan Gehrke 6-1, 7-5. With Aiden Ostermann also out Wednesday, the Hodags featured a new pair at No. 3 doubles with juniors Karter Massey and Hart Hokens getting past Christian Preuss and Blaine Searles 6-3, 6-4.

“I didn’t watch a whole lot, because they were doing pretty good,” Nichols said of his doubles teams. “But I’d echo serve and net play, kind of similar to what we saw at (Wausau) West. I think our volleys have much improved, placement and kind of crashing in to finish those shots. That was fun to see, top to bottom.”

John Currie won arguably the match of the day Wednesday — and a potential conference championship preview at No. 1 singles — as he fended off last year’s GNC runner-up Brayden Balciar in a pair of tiebreakers, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4).

“It was a great match. That was a great player from Medford. It was fun to see them rally, compete,” Nichols said. “I thought John did a nice job of staying strong. We worked a lot on, when you’re under pressure, can we still keep playing our game. We did that at practice and now we got it in a game. It was cool to see the result.”

Senior Zacha King added the fifth win for Rhinelander on Wednesday, edging Medford’s Jude Start, 6-4, 6-4 at No. 4 singles.

“Zacha also had a great match at No. 4, just adjusting to the other player, constantly changing the little things he was doing to earn points,” Nichols said.

Rhinelander lost at No. 2 singles, where Nick Lesch fell to Conner Klingbeil 6-1, 6-1. Payton McCue could not hold on after taking the opening set at No. 3 singles, falling to Medford’s Cale Schulz 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

“Payton, we’ve been working a lot on some of his stroke fundamentals,” Nichols noted. “Changing that kind of into the game didn’t always pan out. He’s kind of halfway between his old swing and his new swing, but I think it was a really good game for his development and building his game to be stronger than what it used to be.”

Sheboygan Invite

Rhinelander wound up second in the silver bracket in Sheboygan over the weekend, thanks to some nail-biting finishes. 

After falling to host Sheboygan North 5-2 in Friday’s opening match, the Hodags rebounded with a 4-3 win over La Crosse Central and a 5-2 win over Port Washington to round out pool play on Friday. 

The Hodags edged Holmen 4-3 in their first match on Saturday before falling to West Bend West 5-2.

“It was a good tune-up for the postseason run,” Nichols said. “We got a lot of matches in, getting them ready for those longer tourney days, worked on some different strategies but, really, we just tried to work on just playing tennis, playing hard and treating like any other match and getting ready for some of those more competitive matches.”

Both 4-3 victories over the weekend were settled by match tiebreakers. Five of the seven flights went beyond a second set against La Crosse Central. McCue rallied for a 4-6, 6-3, 10-5 win at No. 3 singles while Schiek and Ostermann won at No. 3 doubles, 5-7, 6-2, 10-5. 

The Hodags had one more rally up their sleeve Saturday morning against Holmen as Massey rallied to take the fourth singles flight 3-6, 6-1, 10-7 to claim the decisive point. Overall, 10 of the Hodags’ 35 matches over the weekend were decided in a tiebreaker, with Rhinelander coming out on top in six of those.

Belanger was back in the lineup for Rhinelander as he and Fritz went undefeated at No. 1 doubles. They edged Sheboygan North in a match tiebreaker 6-2, 3-6, 10-4 before taking their next four matches in straight sets. Ostermann and Schiek were 4-1 at No. 3 doubles while Denis and Pontell went 3-2 at No. 2 doubles. 

Massey went 2-1 for the Hodags at No. 4 singles, with both of his wins coming in tiebreakers. McCue picked up two wins at No. 3 singles on Friday before bumping up to the second flight on Saturday.

Conference ahead

Rhinelander will have one final non-conference dual meet this afternoon at home against Marshfield before turning its attention to championship season. 

As of press time, Rhinelander’s magic number to clinch the conference title was 31 points, though that could drop pending the outcome of the Lakeland-Antigo match. 

Seeding-wise, Rhinelander should be in position for a number of top seeds entering Thursday’s play. Currie finished the conference schedule undefeated at No. 1 singles. Rhinelander also went unbeaten at No. 2 doubles, No. 3 doubles and No. 4 singles. The lone loss at No. 1 doubles came in the conference opener. Belanger was not available for that match as Fritz and Pontell dropped a three-setter to Ashland’s Bodee Mikkonen and Austin Vyzkocil, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3.

“It kind of close out a nice dual season for the majority of these guys, setting them up for some nice seeds to set them up for a good day on Thursday,” Nichols said. “As a team, we have that aspect then, individually, each flight is poised to do well.”

Play is scheduled to get underway at 9 a.m. Thursday at the RHS tennis courts.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].