Last one in

MERRILL — It was not the way the Rhinelander High School football team wanted to make the WIAA playoffs, but the Hodags did just enough over the course of the regular season to live and fight another week.

Rhinelander fell at Merrill 27-13 after a late rally fell short Friday night in the regular-season finale. Holding the 32nd and final playoff spot entering the night in the Division 3 playoff rankings, the Hodags had to rely on a lot of help elsewhere to make the tournament. Luckily, the stars aligned and Rhinelander snuck in as the 32nd and final team in D3, just ahead of the first team out — Portage.

Rhinelander’s reward for making the postseason is an eight-seed and a trip to Madison to take on 8-1 Edgewood.

It marks Rhinelander’s seventh playoff appearance all-time and fifth in the last seven years.

“Obviously, we wanted to win last night, and we wanted to push our seeding up and maybe get a six seed or a seven seed, but it doesn’t matter. We’re in, and we live to fight another day,” Hodag head coach Aaron Kraemer said Saturday morning, shortly after the WIAA playoff brackets were announced. 

Rhinelander had a chance to make life easier on itself with a win over Merrill, which would have put it into the field comfortably. The Hodags had life after rallying from a 14-0 first-quarter deficit to pull within 19-13 with just more than 4 minutes to play, but Merrill quarterback Cole Rudie scored from 38 yards out to end those chances after the Bluejays converted a key third-and-10 to keep the ensuing drive alive.

The Hodags’ frantic comeback included a 43-yard reception by Cyrus Leisure on fourth and 33. He finished with 101 yards rushing, 61 yards receiving and had both of Rhinelander’s touchdowns.

Though Rhinelander came up short, Kraemer said he was proud of his team’s effort in what it believed to be a must-win scenario.

“Obviously, we came up short, but that is the best game of Hodag football we’ve played for three weeks,” he said. “I told them straight up at halftime, ‘That’s Hodag football. That’s the way you play.’ They believed that we could do it, and they played as if they believed that we could do it.”

It looked as though Rhinelander was trending toward a third straight blowout loss the way things started in the first quarter. The Hodags punted on their first two possessions while Merrill marched 67 yards on nine plays on its opening drive, capped off by a Kanin Jahnke 1-yard run. The Bluejays made it 14-0 with 5 seconds remaining in the opening quarter when Keylin Allen caught a swing pass from Rudie in the flat and outflanked the Hodag defense down the left sideline for a 60-yard score. 

The Hodags’ fortunes changed on the opening play of the second quarter as Leisure burst through the Merrill defense on a draw play for a 77-yard touchdown and the Hodag defense buckled down from there, holding the Bluejays to three straight punts. 

One of those punts went awry for the Hodags, however, as it bounced off reaturner Sam Zwaard’s helmet at the Hodag 10-yard line and skidded toward the end zone. Rowan Wiczek made a heads up play to bat the ball out of the end zone ahead of Merrill’s Ryker Remington to save a touchdown, but the safety gave Merrill a 16-7 lead going to halftime.

The Bluejays took nearly seven minutes off the clock on their opening drive of the second half before stalling inside the 5 and settling for a Ty Schuett 24-yard field goal.

    Rhinelander’s Cyrus Leisure catches a pass against the coverage of Merrill’s Brody Klebenow on a fourth-and-33 play during the fourth quarter of a GNC football game at Merrill Friday, Oct. 17. The Hodags made the improbable conversion with Leisure’s 43-yard gain. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Rhinelander still trailed 19-7 with 8:53 remaining when it went on an 11-play, 75-yard drive that included two key fourth down conversations. Abe Gretzinger hit Evan Shoeder for seven yards on fourth and 2 to keep hope alive and then hurled a prayer for Leisure with the Hodags facing fourth and 33 from the Merrill 48. Leisure finished the drive with a one-yard score.

“Cyrus, a great play, good throw by Abe, and a really, really nice, pick-me-up and then able to punch that in and give ourselves a shot,” Kraemer said.

Turning points

Ultimately, two sequences in the second half cost the Hodags a chance at a come-from-behind win. 

After Merrill’s field goal, the Rhinelander made it all the way to the Bluejay 2 after a 16-yard completion to Ben Olson. The Hodags went in reverse after that, however. Olson was stopped for a loss on a jet sweep on first down. After Leisure got the Hodags back to the 4, Gretzinger was sacked on back-to-back plays as Rhinelander came up empty. It was part of a long night for Gretzinger, who was sacked five times in the loss.

“We squandered that drive. And I think that maybe was the difference in the game,” Kraemer said.

Even then, the Hodags still had all three timeouts remaining, and Merrill facing third-and-10 from its own 26 with 3:35 remaining, but Rudie hit Remington on a crossing route ahead of safety Ryley Hull for a pickup of 21 to keep the drive alive. That forced Rhinelander to spend all three of its timeouts on defense before Rudie’s clinching score.

“That’s a play that they’ve run quite a bit all year long,” Kraemer said. “Ryley saw it. He just wasn’t able to get close enough to it and make the play. But, you know, if it comes down to one play, and it’s something they make, so good on them for doing that.” 

Statbook

Merrill outgained Rhinelander 330-229 in the contest. Rudie ran for 104 yards, threw for 80 and accounted for two touchdowns. The Hodags held Jahnke, the leading rusher in the GNC coming into the contest, to 77 yards on 23 carries.

Merrill rushed for 250 yards in the contest but was held to five yards a carry, an improvement for a Rhinelander team allowed nearly 9.4 yards per carry the previous two weeks against Mosinee and Medford.

“I was really happy about the way that they played with the game plan that we had,” Kraemer noted “Obviously, late in the game, they wore us down. We got guys that are playing both ways, and it was tough for us. But I thought the defense had a gutty effort tonight.”

Sam Zwaard finished the night with seven carries for 66 yards for Rhinelander, but left the game with an upper body injury following a long run late in the fourth quarter. Gretzinger was 12 of 19 passing for 109 yards and threw an interception with 1:03 remaining that allowed the Bluejays to run out the clock.

How’d they make it?

Rhinelander’s entry into the playoffs hinged on a number of key circumstances. The Hodags came in to Week 9 ranked 32nd, surrounded by a number of 3-5 teams in positions 30-38. Only one of those teams won on Friday. That was 35th-ranked McFarland, which downed six-win Edgerton 28-21 to vault past the Hodags and into 28th in the final rankings. 

Rhinelander gained points in its Tier 2 strength-of-victory metric thanks to Wausau East’s 42-0 win over Antigo on Friday. The Hodags figured to gain points there either way after beating both of those teams in conference play. However, that was enough to vault 31st-ranked Portage for the final playoff spot after a couple of other key results. 

For starters, Portage lost 47-20 to Mount Horeb/Barneveld. Rhinelander dodged a bullet as 33rd-ranked Waukesha North lost to Wauwatosa East, 28-27. Ultimately, the clincher ended up being a 21-6 upset loss by 34th-ranked Stoughton against one-win Lakeside Lutheran. Not only would a Vikings’ win likely have been enough to vault Stoughton ahead of Rhinelander in the final rankings, it would have also aided Portage’s Tier 2 metric after it defeated Stoughton in Week 6.

“We knew that beating Wausau East was going to be huge for us, especially because, they continued on the rest of the season and had a great end of the year,” Kraemer said. “Honestly, that’s kind of maybe the difference for us. the fact that we beat that quality opponent and then, had the points that we needed to have to get in.”

Edgewood ahead

The Hodags will face a tough test on Friday against Badger conference co-champion Madison Edgewood. The Crusaders held on to a No. 1 seed despite a 20-7 loss to Sauk Prairie on Friday — their first loss of the year.

“They’re a really good team, and they have they have some unbelievable players. Obviously they play in a tough conference in the Badger,” Kraemer said. “For us, it’s just about focusing on what we can control this week. We’re going to have to handle a long road trip. With that being said, I think this is going to be a great experience for our guys to learn something new about a new team, a new opponent, that they haven’t played and just the opportunity to play in that atmosphere. I think is going to be great.”

Friday’s game will be played off-campus at Breese Stevens Field, just east of the State Capitol. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].