Hodag soccer blanked in Menomonee Falls games

The disparity in soccer talent and depth between the northern half of the state and the southern half of the state was on full display for the Rhinelander High School girls’ soccer team to see this past weekend. 

The Hodags had their hands full down south, outscored by 12 goals in two games in the Menomonee Falls Quad. Rhinelander dropped their opener Friday night against Menomonee Falls 7-0 and then fell to Cedarburg 5-0 Saturday morning.

Those games came on the heels of Rhinelander shellacking Antigo 14-0 Thursday, April 23 at Mike Webster Stadium. 

Hodag coach Nathan Bates said the weekend games were an eye-opening experience for his team.

“We went down there with the understanding coming down there to learn and play against some really tough competition with some bigger schools,” he said. “We learned a lot of things that we need to work on for corrections to try to make a deep run this year in playoffs.” 

Bates said pace of play and the speed of transitions were the primary difference. Depth didn’t seem to wane for the opposition, either, once they went to the bench.

“When you got that many fresh legs on the bench and sub, four or five kids at a time, that’s a big one,” Bates said. “… A lot of these kids seem like they play soccer year round. We have a lot of great athletes (in) soccer, swim, gymnastics, et cetera,  but these kids seem to be more focused on one sport on these teams that we were playing against.”

Menomonee Falls jumped on Rhinelander for four goals in the first half on Friday night and tacked on three more goals in the second. 

Rhinelander fared a bit better Saturday morning, trailing Cedarburg 3-0 at halftime before conceding two more goals in the second half.

Much of the play was down in Rhinelander’s half of the field. Menomonee Falls outshot Rhinelander 37-10 on Friday, and Cedarburg had a 40-9 edge in shots on Saturday. 

“The first was kind of shellshocking for the girls a little bit (Friday) night, and then today we had a much better showing against Cedarburg,” Bates said. “The score doesn’t reflect it, but the girls, did a pretty darn good job, honestly, throughout the whole game. They pressed hard. They had some opportunity on attacks as well, as they did in the first game last night. It wasn’t fully-lopsided games. They definitely never gave up. They didn’t quit the whole game, and they still continued to try to make things happen.” 

Keeper Rylee Mickevicius posted double-digit saves each game — with 10 against Menomonee Falls and 13 against Cedarburg.

“Rylee had some really good stuff. It was good to see her actually have to take quite a few shots against these teams. So she got a lot of work in, and she did a fantastic job at goalie as well,” Bates said.

Rhinelander 14, Antigo 0

    Rhinelander’s Ella Miljevich sprints past the Antigo defense on a breakaway during the first half of a GNC girls’ soccer game at Mike Webster Stadium Thursday, April 23. Miljevich scored four goals and had three assists as the Hodags defeated the Red Robins, 14-0. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

The Hodags had no problems scoring against much weaker competition Thursday night. Ella Miljevich and Vivian Lamers each scored four times, Jordan Manske added a pair of goals and Rhinelander defeated Antigo by two touchdowns at Mike Webster Stadium. 

The goals came in bunches as Rhinelander scored seven times in a 13-minute span in the first half and added seven more goals in a stretch of just more than eight minutes in the second. 

“Girls were on tonight. They were doing some really, really good stuff together, working as a team, some good give-and-goes,” Bates said. “I mean, had a lot of good 1-v-1s with the goalkeeper, making some fast transitions tonight, also, from back on the defensive side, things in the midfield. When the defense was stacked high and our forwards are up top, we were doing faster transitions versus dribbling the ball so much.”

Miljevich tallied two goals in 22 seconds in the eighth minute to open the scoring before Lamers found her first on a shot from the top of the 18 in the 10th minute. Miljevich completed her hat trick on a breakaway in the 14th minute and then dropped a ball to Hayley Schiek for a one-touch finish in the 19th minute. Ella Heck scored on a rebound and Manske got on the end of a Schiek through ball to give the Hodags a 7-0 lead exactly 20 minutes into the match. 

Manske resumed the scoring in the 48th minute capitalizing on a Mollie Arneson cross. That seemed to open the floodgates again as Lamers scored 18 seconds later, and it took only 16 more seconds for Gabby Wanta to breach the defense and score one of her own. 

Goals by Miljevich in the 52nd minute, Lamers in the 53rd, Kiley Pooch in the 55th and Lamers again in the 56th rounded out the scoring before the mercy rule went into effect at the 60-minute mark.

Only an eight-goal margin is required to trigger the mercy rule, however the Hodags went well beyond that with many of their front-line players still in the game in its final minutes. 

A number of JV players did see time late in the first half, however Bates said — given that they, like the varsity, were playing three games in three days — he opted against emptying the bench late in the contest. 

“The reason we didn’t do that is due to the fact that the JV just had a really, really tough game prior to this against Crandon’s varsity squad. JV also has some really tough competition tomorrow as well,” he said. “So we did consider playing the JV a lot more of this game, in the second half. But at the end of the day, they have the same schedule that we also have with the varsity team too.”

Up next

The Hodags face a tough challenge tonight on the road at conference unbeaten Medford. The Raiders are just a point behind Lakeland and Rhinelander in the GNC standings after taking a penalty kick shootout from Northland Pines April 23. 

Rhinelander will travel to Mosinee for another GNC match on Thursday.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].