RHS Sports recap: Thursday, Feb. 27

Boys’ basketball: Rhinelander 51, Medford 43

The Rhinelander High School boys’ basketball team has won back-to-back Great Northern Conference titles, winning this season’s conference crown with a 51-43 victory over Medford Thursday night at Raider Hall.

The Hodags nearly led wire-to-wire in a winner-take-all championship game. Rhinelander seized control with a 9-0 run midway through the first half and then closed the half on a 10-2 spurt to go up 28-17 at halftime. 

Rhinelander led by as many as 13 in the second half and withstood a nearly eight-minute field goal drought as Medford got no close than five down the stretch. 

Truman Lamers paced Rhinelander with 18 points while Abe Gretzinger had a double-double off the bench with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Charlie Gierl — who had 32 points and 13 rebounds in the first meeting between the teams — was held to 12 points and one rebound on Thursday for Medford and the Raiders shot only 35% from the field (18 of 52) overall.

The conference title was Rhinelander’s seventh as a member of the GNC and 25th overall in program history.

The Hodags (18-5, 9-2 Great Northern) open the WIAA tournament next Friday against either Rice Lake or Lakeland in Rhinelander.  

Wrestling: Rhinelander at WIAA state meet

Rhinelander senior Logan Schwinger lost his opening round match Thursday evening in the WIAA individual state wrestling tournament at the Kohl Center in Madison. 

Schwinger fell to Belleville co-op senior Trei Udelhoven by pin 1:23 into the first period to be relegated to Friday’s consolation round. That will be a rematch of the regional final and runner-up match at sectionals as Schwinger will face Hayward’s Deangelo Sardina for the third time in the postseason. The winner of that match will get to compete again on Saturday.

Full reports will be published in Tuesday’s River News.