January 17, 2025 at 6:02 a.m.

Hodag Hoops fends off Mosinee on the road

First-place battle vs. Medford tonight

By JEREMY MAYO
Sports Editor

The Rhinelander High School boys’ basketball team passed a major road test in the Great Northern Conference Tuesday night. 

    Jatyn Barkus
 
 


Jatyn Barkus scored 15 points — all in the second half — and made 10 free throws over the final two minutes as the Hodags secured a 63-54 win at Mosinee in a battle of last year’s GNC co-champions.

Rhinelander (9-2, 5-0 Great Northern) saw an 11-point second half lead shrink to just two with 2:40 remaining before coming up with a series of defensive stops and made free throws that put the game away.

“Guys made some clutch free throws down the stretch. We did some good things offensively to get ourselves a lead and I thought, defensively, we played pretty well,” Hodag coach Derek Lemmens said. “We had a couple stretches but overall, defensively, we locked down. Offense was just inconsistent, but when we needed to make free throws down the stretch guys did it.”

Sophomore Brayden Reinke scored 26 points to lead all scorers for Mosinee (9-4, 4-2 Great Northern), including a layup that trimmed Rhinelander’s lead to 52-50, but Barkus answered by making both ends of a 1-and-1 with 1:58 remaining. After Bryson Cveykus missed a quick 3, Barkus was fouled and made two more free throws. That pattern repeated itself following a pair of Treve Stoffel misses and the Hodags were suddenly back up 60-50 with 1:11 to play.

“Jay Barkus stepped up and made (some key free throws) in that timeframe and guys just valued the basketball,” Lemmens said. “They took care of it. They got stops and so that the score kind of got away and we were just slowly able to build a bigger and bigger with stops and then made free throws. Making those free throws was just so big for everyone’s confidence because it just kept us energized throughout that entire stretch.”

Rhinelander held on down the stretch despite Truman Lamers fouling out with 3:29 remaining after his fifth personal — and third offensive — foul of the contest. Devon Feck fouled out with 2:53 to play and Sebastian Andersen made a free throw on the other end that trimmed Rhinelander’s lead to 50-48.

Though the Hodags lead nearly wire-to-wire in the contest, the lead never got any larger than 11 points. Feck scored 11 of his 13 points in the first half, including a 25-footer from the top of the key with 17 seconds remaining as the Hodags took a 28-20 lead to halftime. 

After the teams traded buckets early in the second half, a drive to the hoop by Feck and a left wing 3 by Barkus put Rhinelander up 40-29 with 14:56 remaining. Rhinelander still led 44-34 with 11:29 left after an Abe Gretzinger make in the paint, but Mosinee answered with a 7-0 push that cut the margin to a single possession with 8:58 to play. 

“You know we had some opportunities where I really thought we could blow it open a little bit,” Lemmens said. “We had some bad turnovers, or we had some tough calls and it just seemed like we just couldn’t put it together and put them away. We always just kept letting them kind of climb back. We’d get it to 10 then they’d get it to five and we just never really created the separation that we wanted.”

Reinke, Mosinee’s leading scorer at 19.8 points per game on the year, had a big night against Rhinelander, scoring 13 points in each half while adding nine rebounds. Rhinelander kept Mosinee’s other top threats in check though. Stoffel, a 6-4 junior who averages 13.4 points and 8.8 rebounds a game, was held to five points and two rebounds while Carson Balgord, averaging 10.8 points per contest, was limited to seven. Andersen finished with 11 points for Mosinee.

Evan Shoeder added 10 points and six rebounds for the Hodags while Seth Nofftz chipped in nine points and five boards as the Hodags finished the night 43% from the field (21 of 49) and 6 of 20 from beyond the arc. 

“They played zone which we haven’t been seeing much. I think it took us a little while to get to adapt to that and that they mixed it up enough,” Lemmens said. “But down the stretch, you know, I thought our defense made things happen and got a lot of other guys uncomfortable and cause some turnover is disrupted their offensive flow and at the end of the day they were ready and able to get that victory on the road against the conference opponent.”

Rhinelander maintained a one-game lead over Medford in the GNC standings while Mosinee fell two games off the pace nearing the halfway point of the regular season. The Hodags are gearing up for a big home contest tonight against Medford in a rematch of last year’s de facto GNC co-title game, won by the Hodags 50-45. 

Medford (6-6, 4-1) has a largely different cast of players from that squad, but has three players averaging in double figures, led by senior Charlie Gierl at 20.4 points a contest.

“They always play hard. They run their stuff, they shoot a lot of 3s,” Lemmens said of the Raiders. “When they’re making shots it’s scary. So we have to do a great job of making sure we defend and get the job done. We just got value the basketball better. They’re always a scrappy defensive team. We’ve got to be better and we’ve got to make sure that we’re getting a quality shot every possession, which is something more capable of doing.”

A win for Rhinelander would put it two games clear of the field in the GNC with six games remaining while a loss would drop the Hodags into a first-place tie in the conference with Medford. Tip off is set for 7:15 p.m. at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected]


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