Hodag soccer holds on to draw with Merrill, takes PKs

MERRILL — It was not easy, but the Rhinelander High School boys’ soccer team strung together back-to-back non-losing results for the first time this season on Thursday. 

Freshman Henry Bonardelli scored early and the Hodags partially withstood a second-half push to come away with a 1-1 draw at Merrill. Rhinelander garnered an extra conference point by taking the subsequent penalty kick shootout over the Bluejays, 4-3.

The results came at a good time for Rhinelander (1-11-2, 1-7-2-0 Great Northern) as it tried to avoid the bottom two seeds in the regional draw and a play-in game prior to the regional semifinals. The seeding meeting was set for Sunday evening, after press time for this edition. 

Postseason draw aside, Hodag coach John Vojta said the slow and steady improvement for his team continues. 

“I’m not even worried about the seeding meeting. My focus is the team to get better,” he said. “When you look at, Medford, we went to a shootout the first time and were able to get a 1-0 win there. We lost at home to Merrill 3-0, and we basically we were up for a 1-0 most of the game (tonight) and ended up with a tie and a shootout win. So I know they got better. Hopefully we got exponentially better.” 

    Rhinelander’s Eric Parish guards the goal during a penalty kick shootout in a GNC boys’ soccer game at Merrill Thursday, Oct. 9. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

Rhinelander won its second shootout in as many chances on the season. Owen Evers, Aidan Lueder, Dean Gillingham and Landon Catlin all converted their chances for the Hodags while Elijah Hohman rang his attempt off the crossbar for Merrill in the second round, giving Rhinelander up 4-3 going to the final round of the shootout. 

Asher Rivord had a chance to clinch it for Rhinelander, but fired over the crossbar. Merrill’s Vincent Keenan then missed high on a chance that would have sent the shootout to extra kicks.

“To come back and win in a shootout, I tell the guys, you got to put all five in the goal. We got four out of five, and they only got three,” Vojta said. “So we came out that way with an extra point, but we left a point here in Merrill. It’s not going to sit well for me.” 

Rhinelander struck early in the match on Bonardelli’s first career varsity goal. He was on the back post to receive a Roan Childs cross from the right flank and placed the ball just inside the right post past a diving Matthew Holloway to stake the Hodags to a 1-0 lead in the ninth minute.

“It’s what we’ve been preaching at practice — get the ball to the corner flag, cross it, and good things will happen,” Vojta said. “If you’ve watched over the last couple of games, the guys are actually getting balls to the touch line, to the corner flag and prepping it and getting crosses. If you’re going to play on what I call railroad tracks — just go straight up and down the field — it’s too easy to defend. You got to get defenders turning and spinning, and the guys are starting to figure that out.”

Merrill drew level in the 67th minute on a free kick after Merrill’s James Crockford was taken down just outside the box by Gillingham. Crockford sent his initial kick into the wall of defenders, but the ball bounded back to him near the top of the 18 and he fired a shot that grazed off the inside of the right post and past keeper Eric Parish.

“I told them at halftime it wasn’t going to end 1-0, and our same nemesis (cost us a goal). We clear a ball three yards to the other team, and we got it rammed right down our throat,” Vojta said.

Merrill controlled the second half, outshooting Rhinelander 10-2 in the stanza and 21-8 overall. The Hodags didn’t show offensive life in the second half until the final 10 minutes. Bonardelli fired from the right side of the 18 and was stopped by Holloway in the 71st minute — the first shot the Hodags attempted in the second half. Rhinelander couldn’t make anything out of a pair of corner kick chances in the 74th minute and had one last chance in the 78th minute when Childs got loose on a breakaway, but the Merrill defense cleared that up, sending Childs’ effort wide. 

Merrill had several other scoring chances before the equalizer, but struggled to put shots on frame. Gillingham rushed to breakup a breakaway chance by Crockford in the 47th minute after a bad pass on the backline allowed Crockford to steal the ball and streak through the middle of the defense. Connor Zdroik fired high on a chance from 30 yards in the 54th minute and Cam Wallin was wide on a chance in the 60th minute.

“Seems like we just run out of gas in the second half. I don’t know,” Vojta said. “I mean, we’re conditioned. Maybe not as well as I think we are, but it just seems like we just run out of gas. We’re not a second half team.”

Parish made four saves in the draw for Rhinelander. 

The Hodags close out the regular season this week, hosting Northland Pines this evening at Mike Webster Stadium before going to Antigo on Thursday to face the Red Robins. Rhinelander has shown improvement in every rematch against GNC opponents so far during the second half of the season and will look to continue to do so this week after falling to Northland Pines 7-1 and Antigo 4-1 in the first half of the season. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].