Rhinelander cuts down the Loggers for first place at Danny Mac

The Rhinelander High School softball team served notice over the weekend that 2026 could be a rebound season for the squad, after several years below .500.

The Hodags defeated the Phillips Loggers 5-3 on Sunday, March 29 to take the championship game in their bracket of the Danny Mac Softball Classic in the Hodag Dome.

Rhinelander downed Athens 6-5 and Flambeau 7-3 the night prior to advance to the championship game.

Now 5-1 after a win Tuesday over Lakeland (see related story) the Hodags are off to their best start since the 2016 season when they started 9-0 and were led by pitcher Ali Bender. 

Bender, now the head coach, said she was impressed with how her team battled each game of the tournament. They kept the trust in each other and always fought back when the other team would rally. 

“We’ve battled back. We’ve had trust in ourselves,” Bender said. “We didn’t lose our fight. I think that’s the biggest thing.”

Rhinelander 5, Phillips 3, 4 inn. 

    Rhinelander’s Saige Mutter drives in the first run to start the scoring against Phillips during the Danny Mac Softball Classic in the Hodag Dome Sunday, March 29. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

The Hodags had to battle back Sunday after Phillips scored three runs in the top of the first. 

Leadoff batter Trinity Smith reached on a walk before being the first run for the Loggers. Three-hole hitter Annaka Tobias tallied the second run after an error, and Raelee Williams scored the third and final run of the inning after a pitch bounced off the front of home plate and up and over the head of Rhinelander catcher Saige Mutter.  

After giving up three runs in the top of the first, the Hodags battled back with two of their own in the bottom. 

Chase Verbist started it off with a leadoff walk, before being batted in on a double from cleanup hitter Kadyn Taylor. Maddie Paulson also scored after being walked, her run coming off an RBI single from Mutter. 

The Hodags held Phillips scoreless the remainder of the game, and scored their last runs in the third and fourth innings. 

Vanney started a rally in the bottom of the third with a single to left center. Taylor advanced Vanney on the bases with an infield hit, before Vanney scored on a wild pitch. Taylor crossed home plate for the team’s fourth run after an infield error by the Loggers. 

Paulson rounded out the scoring with a run in the fourth and final inning. She led Rhinelander’s half of the inning off with a walk, followed by a steal to second base and eventual score on another couple wild pitches. 

Throughout the tournament, Bender said she saw good strides in the teams hitting. 

“Most of the time, when you’re in the batters box, the best pitch you’re going to see is that first one,” she said. 

Being more aggressive on the first strike will help her team get better at hitting as the season progresses, and it was one of her main take home messages to her team after the very first game of the season. 

She also noted the importance of plate discipline. Three of Rhinelander’s five runs against Phillips were scored when the batter reached the basepath on a walk. The Hodags forced a total of five walks during the four innings played, striking out nine times against Tobias. 

Aleece Johnson struck out six in the four-inning contest against Phillips.

Rhinelander 6, Athens 5, 6 inn.

The Hodags wouldn’t have had an opportunity to play for the championship if not for some late-inning heroics in Saturday night’s opener against Athens. 

Kadyn Taylor tied the game with a solo home run in the fifth, and Cassidy Lindner hit a walkoff single in the sixth as the Hodags rallied past Athens 6-5. 

Rhinelander was down to its last chance in the fifth with the game already up against the tournament’s 90-minute time limit. Taylor made sure the game went a bit longer as she crushed a 2-0 offering from Jaelin Switlick deep to left center with one away for her first career home run.

“Kadyn came really big for us by hitting that home run,” Bender said.

To expedite extra innings, the international tiebreaker rule was put into place — with each team starting the sixth with a runner on second and nobody out. Athens was unable to take advantage after Brinely Kornack grounded out to short with runners at second and third to end the Bluejays’ half of the sixth.

Ava Rathbun bunted inherited runner Kalyn Miller along in the bottom of the sixth and Lindner ended it with a bloop single that dropped in front of onrushing right fielder Ava Erickson.

“I told the girls, ‘There is no better moment that you want to be in than an international tiebreaker,’ “Bender said. “I’m like, ‘Girls, this is the moment that we strive for. Don’t get scared now. Go out there and own it.’ And we did. Ava Rathbun put that bunt down to advance Kalyn to third, and then we get up and we get a clutch hit by Cass Lindner.” 

The Hodags led 4-1 after two innings. Mutter smacked a two-run triple to right in the bottom of the first and her courtesy runner, Audrina Skubal, came around on a single up the middle by Miller. Vanney added to the lead in the second on a double to right center that scored Paulson.

Athens came back with two runs in the third and took the lead with two more in the fourth. Brynley Louis singled, stole second, took third on a throwing error and scored on a passed ball to tie the game. Karly Eckert walked and the Hodags made a change in the pitching circle, calling Vanney in from the bullpen. 

The first three batters reached against Vanney, with Brooklyn Westfall drawing a bases-loaded walk to give Athens the lead, but Vanney got out of the inning with no further damage and wiggled out of jams with runners at second and third with two out in both the fifth and the sixth. 

“We went up, what, 4-1 right away in the beginning, and I think it gave the girls some confidence,” Bender said. “And what I noticed about our team today is that when we tied up the game or they went ahead, we didn’t sulk. We didn’t get down. We were like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna do this.” 

Vanney went 2 2/3 innings in relief, scattering two hits with four walks and three strikeouts to earn the win.

Rhinelander 7, Flambeau 3, 6 inn.

A four-run third inning proved to be the difference in the semifinals as the Hodags defeated Flambeau, 7-3. 

Kenna Frafjord went just one inning in the circle for Flambeau before the Falcons turned to Brooklyn Hughes. It took a bit for the Hodags to adjust to Hughes’ steady diet of off-speed pitches but went to work once they did. 

Paulson and Vanney started the third with back-to-back singles, with Paulson scoring after advancing on a wild pitch and a passed ball. Miller added a two-out RBI single and scored two batters later on an errant throw after Lindner reached on an infield hit. Johnson added an infield hit for an RBI to give the Hodags a 5-1 lead.

“We just had to have that one time through the lineup to really see her,” Bender said. “It’s hard. You can say, keep your hands back, hold your weight back, give yourself an extra couple seconds. But to actually be in those shoes and actually do those things when we’ve been practicing, timing up, quicker pitching and different pitches and going with the pitch, it was hard. I’m proud of the girls, because not only was it slower, it was coming in, like heaping in, and then falling down into the strike zone, which is extremely hard to hit.”

Flambeau crawled back with three runs in the bottom of the third but the Hodags added two key insurance runs in the sixth. Paulson singled and scored after being obstructed by third baseperson Madison Baker, who had already committed a fielding error and a throwing error on the ground ball by Vanney that started the play. Vanney scored three batters later on a groundout by Miller. 

Johnson got the win against Flambeau after Vanney started and went three innings. Johnson allowed just one hit and struck out five in relief. 

“Having that experience again today, switching both of them throughout the game, I could see that being a strategy throughout, because they both kind of throw a little differently,” Bender said of her two sophomore pitchers.

She said the most room for improvement with her pitchers is getting ahead of batters in the count. 

“Sometimes, when we’re pitching, we aren’t ahead in the count. We’re getting behind, and then we’ve got to give them a ball to hit,” she said. “(They faced) some good hitters this weekend, and they did a nice job.”