Hodag tennis downs Ashland in GNC opener

The Rhinelander High School boys’ tennis team began its quest for an 11th consecutive Great Northern Conference title with a convincing win on Tuesday.

Rhinelander swept doubles, and came within a match tiebreaker of doing the same in singles, as it defeated Ashland 6-1 in a road contest. 

The Hodags (5-0, 1-0 Great Northern) breezed through five of the six contested matches an Ashland was unable to field a No. 3 doubles team for the dual. Rhinelander dropped a total of three games in the Nos. 2-4 singles flights and won both contested doubles matches 6-0, 6-0.

“It was mainly a battle against ourselves, and I think we focused on some consistency, some technique the last couple days. It was nice to see the different flights working on those and really fighting their own side of the court to keep the ball in, and to move the ball well,” Hodag coach Matt Nichols said. “It was a good match for them, not super contested, not very close, but still something that we can take away from as a learning experience to make our game stronger.”

With Payton McCue playing No. 1 doubles for a second straight match, senior Karter Massey moved to the No. 1 spot in the singles lineup for the Hodags. His rally to earn a clean sweep for Rhinelander fell just short as he dropped a match tiebreaker to Ashland’s Adrian Erickson 6-4, 3-6, 10-6. 

“He played a really good match, a good growing experience. Anytime you do a tiebreak you’re going to get better at them by doing them as long as you can reflect on it and take what you learned into the next one,” Nichols said. “I think just struggling with some consistency early on in the first set. As he dialed it in, he commanded through the second set and then ultimately forced the match tiebreak, which he played well through. I think he really was getting messed up by this guy’s serve. He has a really nice hard serve. We haven’t done a lot of that. We don’t have huge serves, comparable to that, on the team. He was adjusting throughout the match getting better, but that really came to play in the match tiebreak, just some un-returnable serves.” 

Aiden Ostermann downed Lucas Oliphant 6-1, 6-1 at No. 2 singles, Calvin Loomis routed Lincoln Lemieux 6-0, 6-0 at No. 3 and Asher Rivord took the fourth flight with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Colten Pupp. 

McCue and Michael Schiek rolled over Nate Kostac and Wyatt Granados with a love-and-love win at No. 1 doubles. Ditto Hart Hokens and Van Tulowitzky over Steven Snedker and Trevor DeJesus in the second flight. Danek Koniar and Braydon Lorman won unopposed at No. 3 doubles. 

Tuesday’s matches were contested in cold, windy conditions. The match-time temperature was 38 degrees with a wind chill of 32 as the wind gusted from the west northwest at 15-25 MPH.

“It was cold, it was windy and I was impressed with the guys in their ability to just fight through,” Nichols said. “Obviously, they were cold, a lot of hands in pockets, but there were no complaints and we made the best of it.”

After one conference dual, the Hodags find themselves in a familiar spot a top the conference standings. 

The two teams that figure to be Rhinelander’s chief rivals in this year’s title race — Medford and Lakeland — played each other Tuesday night with Medford scoring a 4-3 road victory. 

Rhinelander’s next match will be this coming Tuesday at home against Lakeland, which Nichols said will be a pivotal early season test for his squad. 

“Pivotal is a good word, looking at the runner-up from last year returning a lot of players,” he said. “It’ll really show us kind of where we’re sitting in the conference, both of us. It’ll you know dictate, probably, who is going go into the conference tourney in the lead. It’ll be a big match. It’ll be fun to play and fun to host.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].