THRILLING THREE-PEAT

MOSINEE — The Rhinelander High School boys’ basketball team has had its backs to the wall a number of times this season. More often than not they have succeeded, a couple of times they’ve failed, but all of those experiences provided the Hodags the fortitude they needed with a Great Northern Conference three-peat in the balance. 

    Rhinelander’s Devon Feck attempts a 3 over Mosinee’s Will Harris during overtime of a GNC boys’ basketball game in Mosinee Thursday, Feb. 26. Feck scored a career-high 33 points in the Hodags’ 75-73 win. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Devon Feck scored a career-high 33 points, Abe Gretzinger added 19 points and 14 rebounds and Tommy Eades scored four of his six points in double overtime as the Hodags rallied past Mosinee 75-73 on the road Friday night.

Brayden Reinke had 26 points and Treve Stoffel added 14 points for Mosinee (18-6, 13-1 Great Northern), which had already earned a share of the conference title and was looking for its first solo championship since 2021-22. Things were looking good for the Indians for a while as they led by as many as 13 in the first half and still had an 11-point advantage midway through the second. 

Rhinelander (21-3, 13-1 Great Northern) came back swinging and, eventually found a way to win, even with two key players out of the game. 

“It had nothing to do with anything drawn up on a board. That was guys saying, ‘we’re not losing,’” said Hodag coach Derek Lemmens, who won his eighth conference title at his alma mater. 

“We all just talked about coming in here and doing it together,” added Feck, who has scored 65 points over the Hodags’ last two games. “We all just kind of agreed that this is really it. This is our last chance as seniors. So we were gonna go out there, fight for us, fight for the team, and go out and do it together.” 

    Rhinelander’s Tommy Eades races ahead of Mosinee’s Mitchell Michlig (10) and Treve Stoffel (23) for a loose ball during the first half of a GNC boys’ basketball game in Mosinee Thursday, Feb. 26. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Unsung heroes have a knack of rising to the occasion in big games. That was the case for Eades, a sophomore who was pressed into additional minutes late after starters Jatyn Barkus and Rowan Wiczek had fouled out of the game. 

Eades put the Hodags ahead 70-68 on a transition layup with 2:38 left in the extra session. After Stoffel tied it on the other end, Eades got to the rack again, putting the Hodags up for good with 2:03 remaining. 

“The moment wasn’t too big for Tommy. He’s got a lot to be proud of. His energy and his effort were phenomenal, but then to be able to step up and make those big shots, that’s huge,” Lemmens said.

Rhinelander took its largest lead of the game, 74-70 on an Evan Shoeder basket with 1:03 remaining, but Mosinee got back within one as Nathaniel Kohnert split a pair of free throws and Stoffel scored on a putback with 18.2 seconds left and was fouled. Stoffel missed the free throw, however, that would have tied the game.

After Gretzinger split free throws on the other end, Mosinee had one final chance to tie or win. Rhinelander forced the ball out of the hands of Stoffel and Reinke for the final possession, and Eades stripped Kohnert on a baseline drive. Rhinelander recovered the loose ball and called timeout with 0.9 seconds remaining. They chucked the inbound into the front court and tipped the ball, allowing time to expire. 

“What Devon did late in the game with Stoffel, especially with four fouls, was this beautiful, and guys were in position,” Lemmens said. “We didn’t rebound well, but we defended well. And had we rebounded and defended, it could have ended a lot sooner, but again, just a gritty performance, just great to see.”

Reinke had 16 points in the first half alone and Mosinee used a 9-0 run to build a 19-7 lead with 9:43 left in the half. Their largest lead was 13 before Rhinelander chipped away and made it a 33-22 game at the break. 

Rhinelander crawled within four, down 41-37, on a Feck 3 with 12:05 left in the second, but Mosinee resounded with a 7-0 push. It was capped by a transition bucket from Sebastian Andersen to make it 50-39 game with 9:18 left. 

“A lot of things not going well for us. Guys did an amazing job finding a way,” Lemmens said. “Our bench stepped up, gave great energy, and it would have been real easy to just kind of fold. And they really responded well in the second half to that deficit, and understood that we had a whole half to get it back, and they didn’t try to get it back in one fell swoop. So just great basketball by those guys.”

The Hodags fought back, getting within a single possession on a Shoeder 3-point play with 5:31 remaining, and within two on a Feck jumper with 4:09 left. Rhinelander finally took its first lead of the game on a Feck 3 with 2:15 remaining. 

Stoffel answered for Mosinee with 1:35 left and Michlig split a pair of free throws to make it 61-59 with 58 seconds left. After an empty Rhinelander trip, Michlig missed two more foul shots, and the Hodags called timeout with 22.5 seconds left trailing by two. 

    Rhinelander’s Abe Gretzinger drives past Mosinee’s Treve Stoffel for a game-tying layup late in the second half of a GNC boys’ basketball game in Mosinee Thursday, Feb. 26. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Gretzinger made a driving layup with 15 seconds left and Mosinee called timeout with 5.8 seconds left to set up their final shot. The Indians tried to get the ball to Reinke, but Gretzinger stripped the ball away at the top of the key and time expired before either team gained control.

Mosinee took the early lead in overtime, but Rhinelander went ahead 66-64 when Feck made three free throws after being fouled on a 3-point attempt by Will Harris with 45.7 seconds left. Andersen made a putback on the other end, and was fouled, but missed the free throw to leave the game tied at 66. Mosinee finished the night 14 of 29 from the foul line, squandering a chance to put away the Hodags.

Feck missed a contested jumper from the elbow that sent the game to a second overtime session. 

The Hodags avenged a 75-61 loss to Mosinee in Rhinelander back on Jan. 16. Mosinee students, players and coaches celebrated on the Hodag logo after the game. A picture of the group posing with many appearing to display a horns down gesture — the index and pinky fingers pointing to the ground — several minutes after the final horn was posted on their high school activities Facebook page. The Hodags blew up that photo and hung it in the visitors locker room for motivation prior to Thursday’s game.

“That was a big driver. I don’t think we’d come back at half without that picture, because I’m not much for speeches. But when I can point to something like that, that fired them up, and that brought the energy. So that was wonderful to see,” Lemmens said.

Gretzinger added: “They’re stomping on our logo, putting horns down. They’re saying everything in the book, but you know what? We kept our heads, we just kept that as a reminder, and we came out, and we did our job and, you know what? We kicked their butt.”

Further aiding the Hodags’ cause on Thursday was the sting of blowing a 14-point second-half lead five nights earlier in an overtime loss to River Falls. While that loss potentially cost the Hodags the top seed in their half sectional for the WIAA tournament, Feck said the team applied the lessons it learned in that game for Thursday’s overtime affair.

“I think that was the best thing that could have happened to us,” he said. “Just kind of fighting through that adversity right before huge games with playoffs and stuff. So just getting that loss then, we knew we could battle with them. We knew we could battle with the best teams around. I think just carrying that on, that gave us a lot of confidence coming in.”

Rhinelander won despite shooting just 42% (30 of 72) from the field, its worst shooting performance since a Dec. 12 win at Antigo. Shoeder had seven points and 13 rebounds in the contest, Barkus added six and the Hodags’ thin bench was thinner Thursday night with Conner Rappley (illness) out of the lineup. 

Mosinee shot 39% (26 of 66) and had four players in double figures. Reinke, who scored his 1,000th career point with roughly 8 minutes remaining in regulation, was held without a shot attempt in overtime. 

Andersen finished with 12 points and 13 rebounds and Bryson Cveykus had 12 points before leaving the game in the second half with an apparent ankle injury. He did not return to the contest. Carson Balgord, who scored 13 in the first meeting against Rhinelander, was also scratched from the lineup. 

Rhinelander begins the playoffs this coming Friday, March 7, at the Miazga Gym. The second-seeded Hodags will host the winner of tonight’s game between seventh-seeded Wausau East and 10th-seeded Antigo. 

“This is a perfect game to go into and we just can’t wait,” Feck said. “We have confidence, now we’re rolling, we have all the momentum in the world. So I’m excited.” 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].