Lady Hodags drop opener of Menomonie tourney

The Rhinelander High School girls’ basketball team started slowly Monday and struggled to keep up against a quality St. Croix Central squad, falling 72-38 in the first day of the Menomonie Holiday Tournament.

The Panthers (7-2, 4-1 Middle Border) hit their first five shots from the field to open up a 12-2 lead, and never trailed the rest of the way. St. Croix Central was led by a 23-point effort from senior guard Sophie Hook. 

Aubryn Clark scored 12 for Rhinelander (5-5, 2-2 Great Northern), leaving her 31 points shy of 1,000 for her high school career, but the Hodags could never find their rhythm against St. Croix Central.

“We just looked a step slow and behind them all day — offensively and defensively,” Hodag coach Ryan Clark said afterward. 

The Hodags got the opening bucket of the game, but it was pretty much all St. Croix Central after that. The Panthers scored the next 12 points to establish control. Threes by Aubryn Clark, Teagan Clark and Vivian Lamers got Rhinelander within 15-11 with 12:30 left in the first half, but the Hodags made just one field goal over the next eight-plus minutes as the lead expanded to 17 and the Panthers eventually took a 34-18 lead to halftime.

“I thought we were kind of stagnant offensively,” coach Clark said. “They kind of went like the box-and-1 for a while or just face guard Aubryn. I thought sometimes we had some good movement, but sometimes, I don’t think we recognized when we could just take it and go score.”

Meanwhile, though Central had a height advantage — with four players on the roster standing 6-foot or taller — their guard play had the Hodag defense on its heels much of the night. Rhinelander gave up number of transition baskets as Hook finished the night 10 of 14 from the field and Breslin Hinzman added 18 on 7 of 8 shooting. 

“They’re very well coached. They’re very well organized. I thought their offense, the ball moves quick. Their kids, off the ball, cut hard,” coach Clark said. “But I thought, defensively, we were trying to pressure them, but I don’t think we were very disciplined. We talked about that as a team afterwards. I thought we kind of lost focused on just executing … I think we gave great effort, but I don’t think we were playing super smart or executing what we want to work on. I thought we got a little too aggressive on the ball, and our influence was incorrect, and to their credit, those kids would get downhill, and they went to score.”

Rhinelander twice cut the lead to 14 in the second half, but never was able to make further inroads into the advantage. The Panthers went on a 14-2 run to go up 58-32 with roughly 5 1/2 minutes remaining to effectively put the game out of reach. 

“At halftime we’re down 16, but I thought we could clean a few things up. Then I think the first 5, 6 minutes, we kind of played them even. But, like I told the girls, we have to find a way to (outplay them), if we want to try to climb back in this. So we started extending our pressure a little bit, and then they just kind of opened it up on us,” coach Clark said.

Teagan Clark added 11 points for Rhinelander while Lamers had 10. The Hodags finished the night 28% from the field on 13 of 47 shooting, and were 6 of 19 from beyond the arc. 

Addison Kofal and Megan Felberg added seven points each for St. Croix Central, which finished the night 51% (29 of 57) from the floor. 

It was another loss and another tough test for a Hodag girls’ basketball team that has had plenty of them over the first 10 games of the season. Rhinelander was set for another Tuesday in a playoff rematch against Menomonie, which concluded after an early holiday deadline for today’s edition.

“Good battle, good learning environment. I told the girls, you know, we’ll learn from that one,” coach Clark said. “It kind of sounds like a broken record at times, but I’m OK that we’re playing these games and tomorrow’s another really tough one.”

Visit RiverNewsOnline.com for a recap of Tuesday’s game against Menomonie and read a full report in the Tuesday, Jan. 6 edition of the River News. Rhinelander returns home, and to Great Northern Conference play, Jan. 6 against Tomahawk at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].