Tomahawk trounces Rhinelander 49-7

The Rhinelander High School football team got punched in the mouth Friday night by a team that has become the unexpected favorite to win the Great Northern Conference. 

Jonah Dickens, Rex Reilly and Cash Olsen all scored twice, and the Tomahawk Hatchets routed the Hodags 49-7 at Mike Webster Stadium.

Tomahawk (5-0, 3-0), ranked No. 5 in the latest Division 5 coaches poll, reached 5-0 for the first time since 1969 with the win and moved into sole possession of first place in the GNC. The Hatchets dominated from the opening snap with a combination of big plays and physicality that the Hodags (2-3, 1-2) were simply unable to match. 

“I’m going to be the first one to take the blame this week,” Hodag coach Aaron Kramer said. “I don’t know that we were prepared for as physical a team as they were. I think there were some self-inflicted wounds this week on our side, and that hurt us. But the first person that’s going to take the blame is me. 

“They’re a physical team, they’re mentally tough, and they play a tough brand of football. It’s not overly complicated. They’re going to run downhill at us, and they did that on the offensive side. Defensively, I thought they flew around, they took away a lot of the stuff that we were trying to do.” 

Tomahawk racked up 396 yards of offense while limiting the Hodags to a season-low of 148 yards. The Hatchets took control on the opening possession as Dickens jumped an out route, intercepted quarterback Abe Gretzinger and raced down the sideline for a 72-yard touchdown. 

Olsen, a sophomore quarterback who missed the previous week’s win at Antigo due to injury, rushed for a five-yard score on Tomahawk’s first possession as the Hatchets led 13-0 after a quarter. 

Tomahawk made very few mistakes on the night. The Hodags capitalized on one, however, as Ryley Hull returned a fumble 42 yards for a touchdown to make it 13-7 early in the second quarter. It was all Tomahawk after that, though. The Hatchets answered with a six-play, 78-yard drive that ended in a Rex Reilly touchdown. A 64-yard run by fullback Tiegan Sarazin set up a 15-yard score by Olsen, and Olsen found Dickens for a 46-yard score that made it 35-7 with 40 seconds left before halftime. 

The Hodags twice failed to cash in on short fields in the third quarter, including the opening kickoff, which they recovered at the Hatchet 3-yard line. Olsen hit Jett Reilly for a 62-yard score with 3:20 left in the third that sent the game into run time and Rex Reilly padded his stats with a four-yard score with 4:18 remaining.

Tomahawk’s offense was explosive all night. The Hatchets had six plays of 20 yards or greater in the contest and averaged nearly 12.8 yards per play. 

“We didn’t necessarily get to the ball defensively the way that we want to, and we’re going to fix that,” Kraemer said. “And when we come, we got to come under control too. We had a few missed opportunities in the run game.”

Sarazin finished with 121 yards on just five carries for Tomahawk. Olsen rushed for 68 yards and threw for 143 and two scores on 4 of 4 passing. 

Cyrus Leisure had seven carries for 73 yards for Rhinelander while Gretzinger threw for 73 yards on 11 of 18 passing. Evan Shoeder caught seven passes for 44 yards. However, Tomahawk had relentless pressure all night, sacking Gretzinger seven times. 

The bright spot

    Rhinelander’s Ryley Hull recovers a fumble during the second quarter of a GNC football game against Tomahawk at Mike Webster Stadium Friday, Sept. 19. Hull returned the fumble 42 yards for a touchdown, the Hodags’ lone score in a 49-7 defeat. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Hull’s fumble return was the highlight of the game for Rhinelander. It was set up when Leander Sprecksel stripped Tomahawk’s Max Larson on an inside run play. Hull scooped it up an ran down the sideline for the score. 

“First of all, the hit on the ball carrier by Leander, was one that was great to make the fumble happen. If you watch the play on film, you’ll see a head’s up play by Kaleb Zwaard kind of holding onto the ball carrier to make sure that he wasn’t able to get to it and scoop it back up,” Kraemer said. “And then, of course, Ryley comes in, Johnny on the spot, and makes the play and runs it down for a touchdown. At that moment, I thought the momentum was going to begin to swing, and we were going to move the football.”

Depth issues

One of Rhinelander’s top defensive players and featured backs, Sam Zwaard, missed the game due to a non-injury related issue. Meanwhile, Leisure — who shaken up the previous week at Wausau East — did not record a carry in the second half and Ben Olson was limited late in the contest. Kraemer said it was a case of load management in a lopsided game for his top two rushers.

“It’s important that we start understanding load, especially late in the season and the hits that were taking on our body in the game and not in practice,” he said. 

Rhinelander did not get out of the game unscathed on the injury front, however. Junior cornerback/wide receiver Weston Kibler left the game with a shoulder injury at the end of the third quarter and did not return. Game footage shows Kibler was shoved from behind by Tomahawk’s Lucas Haring while covering a punt — which had already landed out of bounds by the time of the contact. The hit was not penalized, but did draw the ire of Kraemer.

“Sometimes late in the game, they do hit unnecessarily, in unnecessary places,” he said. “It’s kind of a front-runner mentality, you start hitting. And I don’t want to blame them or make it seem like they’re cheap, because that’s not the case. They’re a physical team. But they did get a cheap one on Weston, and now unfortunately, he’s banged up. And so I’m hoping that we get some good news on his front because he’s had a really nice season … I’m really, really proud of him. And I’m hoping that one play doesn’t keep him out for a prolonged period of time.” 

Up next

Rhinelander hosts Antigo Friday in the 91st playing of the Bell Game at Mike Webster Stadium. The Hodags are looking to win back the Bell from the Red Robins for the first time since 2021. More importantly for a team that sat 24th in the unofficial Division 3 playoff rankings entering last week, a victory over the Robins may go a long way to determining whether the Hodags make the postseason field of 32.

“I think it’s less about the rivalry and more about the fact that we’re playing Antigo, and we have to win this game,” Kraemer said. “If we think about it as a rivalry, we worried about the Bell, that’s too much of a mental game for us to play. We just have to focus on winning every single play, winning every single drive, and ultimately winning the game at the end.”

Antigo will come into the game 1-4 on the year following a 35-0 loss at Merrill this past Thursday. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].