Hodag fastpitch outslugs Lakeland in GNC opener

The Rhinelander High School softball team carried its momentum, and timely hitting, from last weekend’s championship at the Danny Mac Softball Classic into Tuesday’s Great Northern Conference opener.

Senior Kadyn Taylor belted a grand slam, the Hodags pounded out 16 hits in all and Rhinelander held on to beat Lakeland 10-8 in Minocqua. 

Freshman Maddie Paulson had three hits, and drove in what proved to be the winning run in the fifth inning. Rhinelander (5-1, 1-0 Great Northern) led 9-4 at that point. The T-Birds (3-1, 0-1 Great Northern), who also won their bracket at the Danny Mac, rallied and got the tying run to the plate on two separate occasions in the seventh before the Hodags closed the door. 

While Lakeland is not the same team that went to the WIAA state tournament last year behind ace pitcher Saylor Timmerman, who’s now pitching at the University of Arkansas, it was still a significant win for the Hodags. Rhinelander had lost seven straight to the T-Birds dating back to the 2022 season.

“We just talked about in general, how big this would be as a win for our program, going from not beating them for the last three years to coming away with a win,” coach Ali Bender said. “The enthusiasm that the girls brought tonight was great. They were ready. It didn’t matter the weather. I didn’t hear one girl complain about the weather. They wanted to be out on that field and they wanted to win.”

Taylor came up big in the fourth inning with her second home run of the season. Trailing 4-3, the Hodags loaded the bases with one out as Chase Verbist reached on an error before back-to-back singles by Paulson and Kendall Vanney. Taylor drove a 1-1 offering off Lakeland starter Moriah Louis over the fence in left center to put the Hodags back in front. 

“We get all the girls on and she jacks one off the fence (of the JV field). What a huge moment. It was a complete game changer again. (It) uplifted us and we were ready to compete again,” Bender said.

Paulson made it 9-4 on a bases-loaded double in the fifth inning that scored Ava Rathbun and Cassidy Linder. She also singled in the seventh and scored on an RBI single by Vanney. But Lakeland, which had scored single runs in the fifth and sixth to make it a 10-6 game, had one last push in it. 

Rayna Hella hit a two-run homer with nobody out in the seventh to cut the lead to two. That was followed by a Savanah Kemnitz base hit that brought the tying run to the plate. Pitcher Aleece Johnson induced a ground ball to Paulson at second that led to a crucial double play. Marlee Strasburg reached on an error to keep the rally alive before Johnson fanned Britta Kemnitz to end the contest. 

“I was proud of (Paulson) being one of the only freshmen starting on our team and having a key play like that in those crucial moments,” Bender said. “We talked about it, we’re really going to create an identity right now, right here in that seventh inning. Can we hold them? If we can, that says something about the girls on this team. Maddie turns around and turns that double play, and we have to only get one more out. Huge moment in the game, gave all that, those girls that reassurance (that) we can do this. We’re gonna win this. And that’s what we needed, just everyone to come together.”

Paulson and Vanney both finished with three hits and two RBIs in the contest while Verbist, Lindner and Kalyn Miller each had a pair of hits. Rhinelander jumped out to an early 3-0 lead. Verbist led off the game with a single and scored when Taylor reached on a two-out error in the first. The Hodags scored twice more in the second thanks to an RBI single by Verbist and a two-out run-scoring double by Vanney. 

“Our heart of the order right now is just smoking the ball,” Bender said. “If we made one huge improvement so far from the beginning of the season to now, it is our hitting, and it’s really just the mentality. We really haven’t changed a lot of swings, but mentally, we are getting in that box like we are gonna own it, and we are going to get a hit. There’s no more doubting ourselves. We’re not resting the bat on our shoulder. We are out there and aggressive.” 

Lakeland rallied to take the lead in the bottom of the second, keyed by a three-run double by Lani Frisch with two out in the inning. Johnson walked two batters in the second, the only two she walked in the contest. The T-Birds wound up with 11 hits in the contest, including three each from Pacelli transfer Layla Kropidlowski and Savanah Kemnitz.

“Lakeland hit the ball well. Aleece struggled in the beginning. We had a walk, then we hit a batter, but she buckled down,” Bender said. “She buckled down when we needed the most, and I think a lot of that was just a reminder of that mental game. Getting ahead of the batters. We kept reemphasizing that to her. You gotta get ahead of the batter so we can mix up pitches, and that’s just what she started to do around that third inning. She was pitching ahead, which helps us tremendously.”

Johnson allowed eight runs, seven earned, on 11 hits with four strikeouts in a complete-game effort as she moved to 4-0 on the season. Louis took the loss for Lakeland, giving up seven runs on 10 hits over four innings. Britta Kemnitz worked the final three frames, allowing six runs on three hits. 

The Hodags would certainly love to keep playing, giving their momentum, but Mother Nature could have different ideas. Thursday’s GNC game at Medford was postponed winter weather. Rhinelander is scheduled to host Tomahawk on Tuesday, but that game is also in question with the Hodag Dome likely unavailable for play as it serves as the city of Rhinelander’s polling venue in the April primary election. 

If that game doesn’t take place, the Hodags’ next contest would be April 9 at Antigo before traveling to Mauston for a two-day tournament April 10-11. 

Bender said there’s still plenty for her team to work on in the interim, as a couple of base-running gaffes Tuesday left some runs on the table and the Hodags stranded 11 runners in the contest — including nine in scoring position. 

“We had some really bad mental errors base running tonight. We had people not tagging up and not knowing what a tag was. We had people running into double plays, so just things like that that we really need to work on,” Bender said. “And the other thing that we need to do is when we have girls on second and third they have got to score. We cannot keep stranding the runners.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].