Hodag softball season ends in playoff loss to Merrill

The Rhinelander High School softball team avoided the big inning on Friday, but three good innings for Merrill were enough to eliminate the Hodags from the WIAA tournament in an 11-0 decision on the road.

The 10th-seeded Hodags recorded only two hits over five innings off Merrill’s Sophie Wendorf.

“I think we only had three errors defensively. I was real proud of the girls. They came out strong,” Hodag co-coach Ali Bender said. “We were hitting the ball, but hitting it right at them. Not many girls struck out our team. We were just hitting the balls right to them and that was the biggest thing. We just couldn’t find a gap.”

Kelsey Winter allowed eight runs over three innings in the loss as Merrill scored four runs in the first and four more in the third. Senior Laney Haenel worked the fourth inning, allowing three runs.

Merrill struck first as Mady Grapp reached on an error and scored on an Olivia Pierce single in the opening inning. Another error allowed Caina Orzech to reach and Pierce to score. Mia Ott singled home a run and a passed ball allowed Orzech to score, making it a 4-0 game. 

Winter sat Merrill down in order in the second, but Mackenzie Herdt led off the third with a single. Following a sacrifice bunt and a walk, Ava Detert singled to drive in a pair of runs. Wendorf added a two-run double later in the inning. 

Merrill got to the run-rule threshold in the fourth as Herdt walked and scored on an error before Lexi Ollhoff smacked a two-run double to left. 

“Kelsey pitched really well, was throwing a lot of strikes and was hitting her corners. They were just a really well-put together team, coached very well, didn’t make many errors. They were putting the ball in play,” Bender said. “Then we wanted to pitch Laney. Laney came in, and she threw really well too, only walked one and was pitching right there and they were hitting it.” 

Kadyn Taylor and Haenel had the lone hits for Rhinelander. Taylor hit a one-out single in the second and Haenel singled with two outs in the fifth. 

Wendorf picked up the win for Merrill striking out six with no walks over five innings. 

The loss capped off a 1-16 season for Bender and fellow co-coach Sadie Adamski in their first year at the helm of the Hodag softball program. 

“We’re so proud of them and their leadership this year,” Bender said. “It was a tough season. We didn’t have a winning streak. We talked about that’s hard to go through an entire season and not win many games, but the way those seniors stepped up, the juniors stepped up, everyone just stepped up and it seemed like we had so much more fun at the end of the year.”

Bender said there would be plenty of opportunities between camps, clinics, fall ball and open gyms for the team to improve in the offseason, imperative if the Hodags want to gain traction in a competitive Great Northern Conference.

“Our big thing is just put some times together and go play in the summer,” she said. “That was our biggest thing to the girls. You still need to work on it. We need girls to work at it. We really need them to be putting in the time in the summer. We’ll always do our open gyms starting in October, like we did this last year, but that’s the biggest thing, just keep working at it, and we’re going to bring multiple opportunities to the Rhinelander area.” 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].