Hodag soccer gears up for playoffs

The Rhinelander High School girls’ soccer team did not let falling short in the Great Northern Conference race stop them from getting the last laugh on rival Lakeland last year in the WIAA playoffs.

Should everything align, the Hodags will have a chance to do the exact same thing this year.

First thing’s first, Rhinelander will need to get past Shawano as the WIAA Division 3 tournament begins Thursday night at Mike Webster Stadium. 

If that happens, and Lakeland takes care of seventh-seeded Mosinee at home on Thursday, it will be Rhinelander-Lakeland Part III in Minocqua on Saturday with a trip to sectionals on the line. 

The Hodags come into the playoffs after going 11-2-4 in the regular season. Three of those ties, and one loss, came during Great Northern Conference play. Though those hiccups cost Rhinelander a shot at the conference title, coach Nathan Bates called the regular season a successful one for his squad.

“Trust me, I would have loved to have won conference, like everybody else, but with how young our program is and how young our team is I’m extremely happy with what my girls have produced this year,” he said.

After tying Lakeland 1-1 and falling 3-2 in penalty kick shootout last Tuesday in Minocqua, Bates said he was optimistic that this year’s team could put together a similar run as the Hodags look to reach the sectional round of the WIAA tournament for the third time in four years. 

“I honestly feel we can make it to the sectionals,” he said. “I’m going to bet on my girls all day long. They’re fighters and they’ve had a really good season for such a young team that we have. We’ve had an outstanding season in my opinion. I’m extremely happy with how things have turned out.”

Thursday’s tournament opener against Shawano will be a rematch of Rhinelander’s regular season opener held back on April 4 in the Hodag Dome. Rhinelander won that game 4-2, using a pair of second-half goals to break a 2-all deadlock. 

That game was a bit more nerve-wracking than the final score indicated. The Hodags went up 2-0 by the 17th minute on goals by their two top scorers this season — Sophie Miljevich and Vivian Lamers — but Shawano got back to even by the 45th minute thanks to rebound goals by Trinity Popelka and Madeline Pyatskowit. 

Rhinelander pulled ahead on an Ella Miljevich goal in the 54th minute and then caught a break as Popelka missed high and wide right on a penalty kick in the 65th minute before Sophie Miljevich scored the clincher in the 78th minute.

Shawano went on to post a 6-14-0 overall record during the regular season, that including a 4-6-0 mark as the Hawks finished fifth in the Bay Conference.

“We had some defensive hiccups we were working out at that point of the season. We’ve come a long way since then. I’m assuming they have as well,” Bates said. “They’re going to give us a good game. They’re nobody to fall asleep on. They’re a good program, a good team. We’re going to go out there, take it serious. We’re going to go into that like any other game, give 100% and try to come away with the win.”

    Rhinelander’s Lindsey Hoerchler battles Lakeland’s Landry Lenz for possession during the first half of a GNC girls’ soccer game in Minocqua Tuesday, May 21. Rhinelander and Lakeland are on a collision course for a third meeting this season in the regional finals this Saturday, should both teams win their opening round games on Thursday. (Brett LaBore/Lakeland Times)
  

Assuming Lakeland gets by Mosinee — not necessarily a certainty given that Mosinee played Lakeland to 1-0 and 2-0 losses during the regular season — the Hodags will have at least 80 more minutes to try to figure out the T-Birds tough defense and solid goalkeeping. 

Neither team has scored more than once in the last five meetings between the teams. Rhinelander and Lakeland were on a string of four straight 1-0 results before last Tuesday’s 1-1 tie. Rhinelander has scored only two goals in the last five meetings with the T-Birds. Ava Lamers took advantage of a defensive misplay that led to a breakaway goal in Rhinelander’s triumph last year in the regional finals. Sophie Miljevich scored off of a free kick in the 60th minute of last Tuesday’s contest. Otherwise, despite controlling the stat sheet, goals have been hard to come by for the Hodags against the T-Birds.

“It’s hard to combat when they have that many people back behind their 18-yard box,” Bates said. “It’s really hard to combat that because it’s hard to get through all of those players. I thought my girls did really well with it, we just couldn’t get one in, other than the one that Sophie got.”

Josie Wentland has scored for Lakeland in both of the games so far this year against Rhinelander. She converted an eighth-minute penalty kick after the Hodags committed a handball foul in their own box when the teams played April 30 in Rhinelander. Wentland scored off a free kick in the 15th minute in last Tuesday’s game. 

Bates said the key for his defense, in the event of a rematch on Saturday, will be to limit Lakeland’s set-piece chances and slow down their counterattack.

“They have some really good speed up on top and that’s what their whole game is, try to get a through ball and breakaways,” he said. “The first two times we’ve played them, we’ve had the majority of the possession, the majority of the shots.”

Kickoff for Thursday’s game against Shawano is set for 7 p.m. at Mike Webster Stadium. As of press time, Lakeland had not announced what time the game would be held, should it host Rhinelander in a regional final next Saturday. The game would likely start at 5 p.m. or earlier due to ongoing construction around IncredibleBank Field. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].