Hodag soccer draws with Waupaca

The Rhinelander High School boys’ soccer team faced pressure much of the night from Waupaca, but never conceded a goal as it played the Comets to a 0-0 draw Thursday in a non-conference game in Waupaca.

Waupaca outshot Rhinelander 28-3 and had a 9-2 edge in shots on goal, but junior keeper Eric Parish stopped all nine shots that came his way as the Hodags earned just their second non-losing result of the year. 

“It’s starting to head a little bit in the right direction,” Hodag coach John Vojta said afterward. “We just got to see some go in the back of the net here eventually, and we still got work to do cleaning up our defense. To be honest with you, our midfield kind of ran out of gas, and we barely hung on in the last 10 minutes there.”

The Comets did have a number of looks down the stretch, but failed to put many of those chances on frame. Most of Parish’s heavy lifting came in the first half, where he recorded seven of his nine saves. 

That included stops on point-blank chances in the 17th and 30th minutes, a bobbled save on a shot from the edge of the six-yard box in the 35th minute and a diving stop to the near post in the 39th minute. 

Parish was also up to the task when the Comets got off a shot between two defender deep inside the Hodag box in the 57th minute.

“Eric Parish had the game of his life and really just kept us in the game,” Vojta said. “We had a lot of missed clearances, a lot of whiffs in the back, and again, Eric just came up huge for us. He was just phenomenal tonight.”

Rhinelander didn’t manage a shot until the 22nd minute, when Aiden Lueder saw a strong effort from roughly 22 yards go straight to the keeper. Charlie Johnson had a long-range effort stopped in the 60th minute and Asher Rivord fired wide on a chance from 35 yards in the 66th minute. 

“You know, we created a couple chances. We just can’t find that one connecting pass with a proper weight that we can get a striker to run on and have an opportunity. We just everything was a little heavy going forward tonight,” Vojta said.

The Hodags (0-9-2, 0-5-1-0 Great Northern) begin the second half of GNC play tonight at Lakeland and will head on the road Thursday to face Mosinee. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].