Lady Hodags bounce back with win over Three Lakes

THREE LAKES — It took a while for the Rhinelander High School girls’ basketball team to find its stride Tuesday night. Once they did, the Lady Hodags easily returned to their winning ways. 

Aubryn Clark had 26 points to lead all scorers, Vivian Lamers added 20 points and the Hodags raced past the Bluejays 68-37 on the road.

Rhinelander’s defense, staunch all season, carried the team until the offense found its stride. The Hodags forced 32 turnovers, held the Bluejays to 33% from the field and did not allow a 3-point basket in the contest. 

That made up for an offense that struggled early against the Bluejays’ 2-3 zone. Rhinelander had 24 turnovers of its own but found its stride in a 30-4 run during a stretch that spanned the final 6:42 of the first half and the first 3:37 of the second half, which put the game out of reach.

The win snapped a two-game skid for the Hodags (9-3, 4-0 Great Northern) as they prepare to host Lakeland in a battle for first place in the GNC tonight at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium (see sidebar at right).

“We’re always going to compete against the game, play against the game. And so I just think that there were times where we had really good moments and we were playing pretty well, but we’d neglect too many details, and that’s when we’d just get too low,” RHS girls’ basketball coach Ryan Clark said. “So we got to clean that up, obviously, before Friday, but we just got to get more consistent on the little details.”

    Rhinelander’s Aubryn Clark puts up a shot against Three Lakes’ Kailyn Fogerty during the first half of a non-conference game at Three Lakes Tuesday, Jan. 7. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

The Hodags went scoreless for nearly the first five minutes of the contest, and were still trailing until back-to-back buckets by Lamers and Aubryn Clark put Rhinelander ahead 7-4 with 10:40 left in the half. Libby Eppler scored 10 points to lead the Bluejays, including a basket that cut Rhinelander’s lead to one with 10:27 left in the half, but Three Lakes (4-6, 0-2 Northern Lakes) didn’t make another shot from the field until a Kylee Wilson layup with six seconds before the break and the Hodags pulled away, taking a 25-11 lead to halftime. 

“We couldn’t hit any shots, we turned it over. Just a slow start. It seems to happen too often, too slow of a start,” coach Clark said. “Our 2-2-1 press probably gave them a lot of fits there. I thought we did a pretty good job. Vivian, was a workhorse on the front of that. She did a really nice job and we, our next our next two layers the defenders didn’t get greedy, they kind of enticed them into the trapping zones and then we closed that off pretty well.”

Aubryn Clark, who was just 3 of 10 from the field and 1 of 7 from the line in the first half, found her stroke early in the second half. She hit all four of her shots from beyond the arc as part of a 21-6 run to start the second that put the Hodags ahead 46-17 with 11:21 remaining. That proved to be Rhinelander’s largest lead of the night, though the Bluejays never got closer than 23 points the remainder of the contest. 

In addition to scoring in transition, coach Clark said the Hodags moved better against Three Lakes’ zone in the second half.

“I thought Kelsey Winter in the second half did a really nice job of flashing in the middle of against his zone and being really strong with it,” he said. “I thought we had a better movement right away in the second half against the zone, so that was nice to see.”

Lamers scored 12 of her 20 points for Rhinelander in the first half. It marked the fifth time in her last six games that the sophomore has scored at least 17 points. As the Hodags seek a consistent secondary scorer to go with Aubryn Clark, coach Clark said Lamers is beginning to settle into that role. 

“She’s a fantastic getting on in transition, and her and Aubryn have a nice connection where Aubryn’s looking for her. Viv’s reading and getting up the court. They do that well,” he said. “She’s making her free throws. She had a nice little drive today, which is improving for her, but she’s more confident shooting the 3. She’s another outside shooter. What I like about Vivian is she’s starting to have her offensive game come into form and the defense isn’t slipping. She’s still that defender that’s all over the court, making just havoc on the other team.”

Dawsyn Barkus added seven points off the bench for Rhinelander while Kelsey Winter had five points before fouling out midway through the second half. 

Haylee Barnekow, Three Lakes’ leading scorer, finished with six points and was held scoreless in the first half. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].