RHS soccer can’t keep up with Pines in 6-1 loss

Still not at 100% on the health front, the Rhinelander High School boys’ soccer team was unable to keep with Northland Pines in GNC play Thursday night.

The Eagles scored twice in the first half and then pulled away with four more tallies in the second as they defeated the Hodags 6-1 in the Hodag Dome. 

Rhinelander was still without starting goalkeeper Barak Rappley as he continued to heal from a knee to the head sustained a week prior in a conference loss at Lakeland. Caden Ehrhardt returned to the lineup after leaving the Hodags’ non-conference loss at Wausau East due to injury, but the Eagles peppered the freshman keeper with 29 shots, 14 of which finished on frame.

“He’s a freshman. He’s doing a great job. He’s doing the best he can but, man, it’s tough for him to come in and step up to the level that he needs to against a team like this,” Hodag coach Nathan Bates said. “Barak’s got the experience and everything else to go along with it. It’s unfortunate that Caden had to come into a couple of games like he has. It’s hard for the confidence. He’s had to face tough opponents.

“Do I think the game would have been different with Barak in the net? I do, 100 percent. The score wouldn’t have looked like it was, but a lot comes with the experience and the confidence with an older player.”

It took less than six minutes for the Eagles to find the back of the net. Sam Shrock scored his first of three goals on the night, as he redirected a shot from Jackson Olejniczak past Ehrhardt. Rhinelander kept the Eagles from scoring again until the 35th minute when Olejniczak got on the end off a Cody Vojta cross to make it 2-0. 

The Eagles tacked on two more goals early in the second half. Shrock put home a rebound in the 44th minute and exchange student Guilherme Amariz Fonseca fired a hard shot from outside the 18 off the inside of the left post for another score in the 48th minute. 

Fonseca scored again for the Eagles in the 65th minute and Shrock finished his hat trick on a goal with 23 seconds remaining. 

“Their foreign exchange student, No. 12 (Fonseca), he’s got crazy footwork,” Bates said. “He can shoot, he can do a lot. He facilitated the majority of the attacks this evening. He’s a great player. They have a great program. They have a good team. They have a good coach. Rodney (Sternhagen) always puts up a good battle and I know that coming into the game.”

Rhinelander’s lone tally came in the 56th minute as senior Hart Hokens created space for himself near the top right corner of the 18-yard box and ripped a hard shot inside the left post. 

Otherwise, offensive opportunities were hard to come by for Rhinelander, which finished the night with only seven shots —three of which finished on goal. The Hodags nearly got another shortly after Hokens’s goal as Asher Rivord narrowly missed getting a head on a Hokens cross to the back post in the 58th minute.

“Still things we’re working on, dribbling too much, not passing in our transitions,” Bates said. “The boys, they see it, but translating it from practice to the field has not been the easiest of tasks yet this year. Halfway through the season, I’m really hoping we click and some point here. We’ve had good moments and we’ve had other moments where it’s like I don’t know what’s happening. All we can do is keep pushing forward, go after the next team and keep trying.”

Thursday’s game started outside at Mike Webster Stadium but was suspended in the opening minute and moved indoors to the adjacent Hodag Dome after lightning was spotted to the southwest of the field. 

Rhinelander fell to 3-5-1 and 2-2-0-1 in the GNC at the halfway point of the season. The Hodags took on Waupaca Monday night in a game that concluded after press time for today’s edition. Rhinelander will not be back in action until Thursday, Oct. 3, when it travels to Antigo to begin the second round of conference play.

“It’s not as good as I was hoping it would be,” Bates said of the long layoff between games. “Yeah, it will be good for certain injuries and things like that since we have such a small squad this year but, at the end of the day, the more games we play, the better we’re going to get as a team.” 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].