Hodag tennis keeps pace in GNC with 6-1 win over Merrill

With each passing dual, it is becoming clearer that the fight for the Great Northern Conference title will likely be a four-team affair, and the Rhinelander High School girls’ tennis team is doing its best the stay in the fight. 

The Hodags successfully kept pace on Thursday, taking every flight except No. 1 singles in a 6-1 victory over Merrill at the RHS tennis courts.

The win vaulted Rhinelander (5-1) in to second in the conference standings, two points ahead of Wausau Newman. Though the Cardinals (6-0) remained undefeated in conference duals thanks to a 4-3 win over Pacelli Thursday, Rhinelander overtook Newman on points by virtue of having one more individual match victory. Medford (5-2) extended its lead to 18 points in the conference standings with a 7-0 win over Phillips, but has played one more match than both Rhinelander and Newman.

Pacelli (3-2) remained fourth in the standings, sitting 32 points behind Medford, having played two fewer matches than the Raiders. 

“I mean, obviously, the more (wins) the better, but 6-1, I mean, we can’t hang our head on that,” Hodag coach Matt Nichols said after Thursday’s win. “Merrill’s a solid team. They have a lot of just competitive flights. They obviously pushed our girls, and I thought we played well. We just came up short on one, but we also got some nice wins in other flights. So it was overall a good day.”

    Rhinelander’s Eva Heck serves during a GNC girls’ tennis dual against Merrill at the RHS tennis courts Thursday, Sept. 11. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

The Hodags were pushed in a number of flights, but prevailed in most of them. Rhinelander swept the doubles’ side of the ledger with straight-set wins by Teagan Turcotte/Maddie Legrey, Willow VanDenHeuvel and Eva Heck and Addy Currie/Willow Mutter. 

Turcotte and Legrey pulled away after a tight first set to defeat Grace Hoock and Jazlin Severt 6-4, 6-1 while VanDenHeuvel and Heck were 6-4, 6-3 winners in the second flight over Korina Kragenbrink and Jenna Malluege. 

“I think No. 1 doubles, I think they got in the groove, they definitely were able to kind of cruise through that second set, just getting a little consistency on ground strokes, opening up overheads at the net, hitting those was huge,” Nichols said. “And No. 2 doubles, I think kind of a similar thing, but they were getting pushed by the other team, they were aggressive at the net. They were getting really nice touches, and we adjusted well. We started hitting some line shots, we threw in some lobs, kind of changed the look, got it around the net player. (We) made them kind of second-guess their shots, and we started winning points off of that, and also putting in points away, we were picking it up at the net, which was nice to see.”

Currie and Mutter downed Parker Wagendar and Addison Pickard 6-0, 6-3 to complete the doubles sweep.

    Rhinelander’s Jordan Manske reaches for a return during a GNC girls’ tennis dual against Merrill at the RHS tennis courts Thursday, Sept. 11. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

In singles, freshman Lucy Evers cruised to a 6-0, 6-1 win over Rose Dornbrock while sophomores Jordan Manske and Taylor McKinney battled through competitive second sets to pull off wins. Manske was a 6-1, 6-4 winner over Great Peterson at the No. 2 flight while McKinney knocked off Claire Hintz 6-3, 6-4, in the third flight. 

“At No. 2, that second set, I think there might have been just a little bit of loss of focus (after) you win a first set fairly handedly. But it was nice to see that she was able to refocus, recalibrate, and then just finish off the set strong, Nichols said. “Taylor got pushed. She I think she struggles if her opponent isn’t necessarily as strong as her, and it was it just, you know a different fight for her. A lot was kind of against herself and she was able to prevail through that and win, so that was awesome to see.”

Annie Vander Galien suffered the lone loss for Rhinelander, dropping the top flight of singles to Merrill’s Emily Frahm 7-5, 6-3.

The results set up an interesting final week of the dual meet season in the GNC. Medford now has the fewest individual match losses (9) in the conference, followed by Rhinelander and Pacelli (11) and Newman (12). Medford will host Pacelli this coming Thursday in what will likely be a pivotal match. Meanwhile, the Hodags travel to Marshfield Columbus (1-4) tonight and host Lakeland (3-2) on Thursday, needing to win as many individual matches as possible as they look for their first GNC title since 2022 — which will be decided when Rhinelander hosts the conference tournament Sept. 25.

“We did what we needed to do tonight. We got two opponents who are lower in the conference, so hopefully we can get really max out our points next week and that’ll lead us into the conference tourney strong,” Nichols said.

Rhinelander played a two-day tournament in Wausau Friday and Saturday. Visit RiverNewsOnline.com for a brief recap of that event and read a full report in the Friday, Sept. 19 edition of the River News.

Jeremy Mayo 

may be reached at

jeremy@rivernews

online.com.