Holding on to hope

The path toward a potential Great Northern Conference championship repeat for the Rhinelander High School boys’ basketball team has not been easy, but the Hodags now sit one win away from hoisting another conference trophy.

In a way, Friday night’s home game was a microcosm of that path. The Hodags looked strong at times and at times battled adversity but, in the end, came out on top. 

Devon Feck, despite battling a sore knee, led Rhinelander with 17 points and the Hodags fended off a late Mosinee rally to win 64-61 Friday at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.

The win kept Rhinelander tied for first in the GNC with Medford as the Raiders raced by Tomahawk 80-36 on Friday. Those results set up a winner-take-all championship game between to two Thursday night in Medford. 

“This is exciting. This is what we play for,” Hodag coach Derek Lemmens said. “It’s great. Going into last game of the season with you’re beginning of season goals still intact and still striving for that so we’re excited.

“I thought guys put themselves in a really good spot making some huge plays and then, when we weren’t great down the stretch, we did enough and that’s all we had to do is win by one.”

Rhinelander (16-5, 9-2 GNC) led by eight with 2:53 remaining of Friday but had to withstand a late surge, partially of its own making with key mistakes down the stretch. 

Mosinee’s Carson Balgord missed a potential game-tying 3 in the final seconds and the Indians ran out of time after the Hodags turned the ball over on an inbounds play with 1.8 seconds remaining. 

Rhinelander went up 61-53 on a Seth Nofftz free throw with 2:53 remaining, but his second free throw was waved off due to a lane violation. Mosinee’s Gavin Chimel made two free throws on the other end and Treve Stoffel scored on a putback following a Rhinelander turnover to cut the lead to four with 2:26 remaining. 

The lead was still five in the final minute, but Truman Lamers missed a pair of free throws with 34.3 seconds left. Rhinelander got a steal on Mosinee’s next possession, but Nofftz missed a breakaway layup attempt and Mosinee’s Sebastian Andersen was fouled on a transition basket. He made the subsequent free throw to cut the lead to 63-61 with 14.4 seconds left. 

Jatyn Barkus was fouled and made one of two free throws with 12.0 seconds left before Mosinee got a final look for the tie. 

“We made mistakes down the stretch, but we also made plays down the stretch and when our offense failed us, our defense stepped up, which is again the huge thing that this team is really buying into,” Lemmens said. “They’re really starting to look at defense as their as their kind of calling card. This is who we are. This our identity and I love that because that’s always going to be a consistent thing.”

The Hodags were also thin down the stretch, with Feck battling a knee issue he sustained at practice this past Wednesday. He finished the night 5 of 9 from the field, and 2 of 3 from distance, but Lemmens said his issue progressively worsen throughout the game.

“You could see Devon really limping around and so we gave him little runs, but by the second half he was really struggling to be mobile. He had a great first half for us,” Lemmens said.

The game went back and forth in the first half, with the lead changing hands eight times before Mosinee ended on a 12-5 run to go ahead 36-34 at halftime. 

Evan Shoeder made a hook shot in the lane to put Rhinelander up 39-38 and a pair of free throws by Abe Gretzinger gave the Hodags the lead for good, up 41-39 with 14:35 remaining. 

Rhinelander pushed the lead to 50-42 on a Shoeder reverse layup with 10:55 remaining, but Mosinee answered with an 11-4 run to close back to within a point with 5:06 to play.

“I had to use timeouts when we when things were going well for us just because with Devon limping, it was kind of the fatigue factor I was worried about, and it seemed like every time I call the timeout it benefitted Mosinee,” Lemmens said.

Rhinelander responded with a 7-0 run from there to push the lead back to eight. 

    Rhinelander’s Abe Gretzinger puts up a shot against Mosinee’s Sebastian Anderson (2) during the second half of a GNC boys’ basketball game at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium Friday, Feb. 21. Gretzinger scored 15 points off the bench in the Hodags’ 64-61 win. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Gretzinger added 15 points off the bench for the Hodags while Shoeder finished the night with 10 points and five rebounds. Rhinelander shot 51% (22 of 43) from the field.

While Mosinee had four players in double figures, Rhinelander was able to hold Mosinee’s top pair of Brayden Reinke and Treve Stoffel in check. Reinke, who came in averaging 21 points and 12 rebounds was held to 11 points and eight boards on Friday. Stoffel finished with 19 points and seven rebounds. 

“I thought this was one of Evan’s best all-around games defensively position wise,” Lemmens said. “He really made it difficult for Reinke to get touches offensively. He was playing more confident than he’s been and I thought the overall team support was really good in those situations. Stoffel is such an excellent passer and I thought guys were doing a great job with pressure and not letting him just sit back and pick us apart, and I just felt like overall it was a very good team effort.”

The Hodags had a non-conference home game against Merrill on Monday that concluded after press time for today’s edition but, now, all attention shifts toward Thursday’s monumental matchup in Medford. 

It’s deja vu for the teams, who played the final regular season game of last year for a share of the GNC title, a game won by the Hodags 50-45 in Rhinelander. The Hodags are playing in a winner-take-all title game instead of already having the conference clinched outright thanks to Medford’s 71-63 win in Rhinelander back on Jan. 17. 

In that game the Hodags struggled from the field early while Medford’s Charlie Gierl, the GNC’s leading scorer, went off for 32 points and 13 rebounds. 

“We got to defend the arc better,” Lemmens said, noting Medford was 10 of 26 on 3-point attempts in the first meeting. “We got to position ourselves off ball better so that we’re not getting picked apart by those slips and you know we got to make shots. We didn’t make shots. They did first time around. We will be better defensively, but we also need to continue to improve offensively when we have rhythm looks we need to knock them down. We need to put pressure on them and make them play from behind.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].