Lady Hodags trounce Crandon in opener

The first career varsity basket for freshman Teagan Clark was something that had been practiced in the driveway and the gym numerous times, and something opposing schools are going to have to get accustomed to seeing the next couple of seasons. 

Aubryn Clark set up her sister for an open left-wing 3 and the younger Clark knocked it down. 

Both performed well for the Rhinelander High School girls’ basketball team on Thursday night. Aubryn Clark had 25 points, Teagan Clark added 19 and the Hodags raced by Crandon 74-15 in non-conference play at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.

Aubryn Clark looked strong in her first high school game in nearly 10 1/2 months after a back injury sidelined her for the second half of the 2024-25 season. The junior’s first assist of the year went to her sister — a moment their father, Hodag head coach Ryan Clark, took a moment to appreciate. 

“They were 5 and 3 when I took the job here, so it’s hard to believe where we are now,” he said. “They love it, I mean, they’re their best friends … But it was pretty cool as a dad, obviously. They’ve looked forward to this, but they worked really hard for this opportunity. So I’m proud of them, because they’re good players, but because they put in so much time.”

Rhinelander overpowered a Crandon team that graduated all four of its All-Northern Lakes Conference selections from a team that went 21-5 a season ago. The Hodags scored the first 13 points of game, led 34-2 less than 10 minutes into the contest and took a 46-9 lead to halftime. 

Rhinelander, on the other hand, showed glimpses of what it could be this season after going 13-12 in an injury-plagued campaign a season ago.

“It was nice. We had a great crowd, great atmosphere here in the gym. The kids were super excited, obviously, to play. And I thought they came in focused,” coach Clark said. “I thought the girls responded really well. I liked their energy, and it was a good win for everybody.”

It took Aubryn Clark a few minutes to get rolling in her first game back. Her first field goal was a 3 that made it 19-2 with 13:22 left in the half. She went on to hit four more triples in the contest and shot 8 of 23 from the field. She also had nine assists.

She was back in front of the home crowd for the first time since a Jan. 10 loss to Lakeland. She tried to play the following week against Mosinee, but could hardly move in warmups and was eventually shut down with a back injury that was much more severe than it first appeared.

“Almost 11 months, never really been injured before, never really had to miss anything. I give her a lot of credit,” coach Clark said. “She did a lot of rehab. A spinal fracture is not easy (to rehab). A lot of people didn’t know exactly what that is and the treatment and recovery. It’s been a slow process but, to her credit, she’s done so much recovery to get back as soon as she could, and she feels fantastic. I’m super happy for her but, at the same time, I think that time away from the game helped her. She grew a lot as a person, doesn’t take things for granted, mentally got stronger.”

Teagan Clark had the hot hand early, scoring eight points in the Hodags’ opening 13-0 run, but was quickly saddled with foul trouble. She picked up her second and third fouls in quick succession just over four minutes into the opening half. 

    Rhinelander’s Vivian Lamers goes up for a layup against Crandon’s Malia Stamper during the first half of a non-conference girls’ basketball game at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Junior Vivian Lamers, who took up the mantle of the Hodags’ top scorer with Aubryn Clark sidelined late last season, had 13 points and eight rebounds on the night. Forward Lexi Beran added six points and eight rebounds as the Hodags shot 43.5% (27 of 62) from the field. 

Seven different players scored for Rhinelander in the opener, something coach Clark said he wants to see more of in the offense — especially once teams start to lock down on his daughters and Lamers. 

“Those three will score a lot this year. Then, you know, we got to get more contributions,” he said. “I thought Lexi had some baskets in there. She was doing a good job with the putbacks as well. Maddie Paulson, Ellie (Cummings), it would be nice to them knock down some more shots. I want everyone to be a threat on the offensive end, and that just opens up everybody.” 

Crandon struggled against Rhinelander’s full court pressure and aggressive man-to-man defense in the half court. The Cardinals shot just 14% from the field (5 of 35) and committed 31 turnovers. Junior Malia Stamper led Crandon with five points.

Despite the convincing win, coach Clark said there were plenty of things to clean up after the first game, both on offense and defense, if his team wants to fulfill is aspirations of contending for a Great Northern Conference title and making a deep push in the WIAA tournament. 

“I don’t want us to deviate from what we want to do. So I had to keep telling them, ‘Listen, we want to do what we will have to do to beat a Rice Lake this year, or Shawano or one of these top teams that we’re going see.’ … Yeah, it was successful tonight, but it’s not going to be successful against better teams.”

The Hodags will get a look at one of those better teams this coming Friday when it faces No. 1 (D4) Eau Claire Regis as part of the Tom Kislow Memorial Tournament in Medford. 

“We wanted to play them. We just said we’ll play in the Kislow as long as we can play Regis again. Their point guard (EllaMay Cooper), Aubryn knows very, very well, a Division I recruit, and they have a 6-5 freshman (Evelyn Borcherding) that’s really good player. They’re loaded. They’re No. 1 in D4 for a reason. We’ll take that challenge and do the best we can.”

Rhinelander will also take on Wausau West Saturday, Nov. 29 as part of the Kislow tournament. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].