End of the road

Murphy’s Law picked a horrible time to appear as the Rhinelander High School boys’ basketball team sought its first trip to the sectional round of the WIAA tournament since 2022. 

In the final nine minutes Saturday night against Menomonie if anything could go wrong for the Hodags, it did — whether it was foul disparity, problems protecting the basketball or stopping the Mustangs top player.

The end result, Menomonie scored more points in the final nine minutes than it did over the first 27, blitzing the Hodags 33-13 down the stretch as they defeated Rhinelander 65-51 in a WIAA Division 2 regional final. 

Devon Feck faced a defense designed to stop him and the Hodag offense and, this time around it worked, as the Hodags shot 39% from the field and committed 20 turnovers. Menomonie big man Trevor Robert scored 17 of his game-high 23 points in the final 18 minutes, and once the Mustangs’ freight train started rolling, the Hodags were powerless to stop it. 

“They have some really good athletic, strong kids. They do some really good things defensively,” Hodag coach Derek Lemmens said. “Kudos to Menomonie, they played a really good game, and we just fell short.”

It was a tough way for things to end for Rhinelander’s three seniors — Feck, Jatyn Barkus and Evan Shoeder. It’s a group that won 57 games and three conference championships over the last three seasons. The only thing missing from the group’s impressive résumé was a trip to sectionals.

“These guys have poured their heart and soul into this program. So proud of them. They reinvigorated it,” Lemmens said. “In their time, they’ve won three conference championships. They just have done so much to be proud of. When you look at the hordes of kids that sit by our bench for opportunities to give those guys high fives and celebrate with those guys, they really have just done so much for our community, our school and our program. You hate to see it end like this.”

Everything seemed to go against the Hodags after Robert scored in the paint to make it 36-32 with 9:20 remaining. Feck had his ankle stepped on by a Menomonie player after the basket and was forced to exited for a couple of minutes. From that moment on, the snowball started rolling the other way. 

Menomonie tied in on a Jacob Rue transition layup with 7 minutes to go and the 6-8 Robert gave the Mustangs a 40-38 lead with 6:11 left. Rhinelander was down 42-41 when Robert converted an and-1 with five minutes to go that started a 14-2 run that spelled doom for the Hodags. 

    Rhinelander’s Abe Gretzinger drives for a layup against Menomonie’s Trevor Robert during the first half of a WIAA Division 2 boys’ basketball regional final game at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium Saturday, March 7. Robert scored 23 points as Menomonie defeated Rhinelander, 65-51. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Robert made 8 of his final 10 shots from the field, all in the paint, and seemingly became a one-man wrecking crew in the second half.

“I thought in the first half we defended Robert really well, and then he just, he got tough,” Lemmens said. “I just didn’t do a good job adjusting when I needed to. We should have been sending more help. We should have been supporting Evan more. I really didn’t adjust the way that I should have.”

Nothing was working on the other end for Rhinelander, either, as the offense became a parade of quick misses and turnovers.  

Rhinelander was 10 of 33 from deep, but attempted 14 more 3s than it did 2s. D.J. Butler face guarded Feck most of the night, neutralizing his presence, while the rest of the Mustangs played zone.

“Another night of box (and-one). We felt confident. We had worked on some things, we did some walkthrough stuff, and we were feeling like we had a good attack, but, between just the lack of reps and the playoff setting, we just had a very difficult time executing some of that,” Lemmens said. “We just continued to have a hard time finding gaps in that and playing without Devon being the core of our offense.

“I felt like we got some decent looks, but I also felt like we settled. I thought we could have gotten inside touches. We saw it when we came out of timeouts. But again, we didn’t consistently do those types of things. I didn’t think we were as patient as we could have been at times.”

Exacerbating the issue was the fact that the Hodags seemingly could not buy a call in the second half. Fouls were 17-5 Rhinelander in the second half and 21-7 overall for the game. That resulted in Menomonie going 16 of 26 from the line, while Rhinelander was just 1 of 2 — and those foul shots came courtesy of Abe Gretzinger in the first two minutes of the game. 

Rhinelander led most of the first half and took a 22-19 lead at the break. Feck scored all six of his points on a pair of 3s early in the second that gave Rhinelander its largest lead at 28-19.

Gretzinger finished with 11 points for Rhinelander while Shoeder had 10 and Tommy Eades chipped in nine off the bench. 

Tyler Nelson scored 17 for Menomonie and D.J. Butler had 16 as Menomonie shot 44% (23 of 52) from the field.

Rhinelander 64, Wausau East 52

    Rhinelander’s Devon Feck attempts a 3 over Wausau East’s Connor Lemirand during the first half of a WIAA Division 2 regional semifinal game at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium Friday, March 6. Feck was held to 14 points combined in two playoff games as both Wausau East and Menomonie utilized a box-and-one defense to slow down Rhinelander’s top offensive threat. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

In hindsight, telltale signs of what happened Saturday night were evident Friday as the Hodags beat Wausau East 64-52 to reach the regional final.

East used a box-and-one to limit Feck to eight points, the game was tied at 15-all at halftime, and the Hodags saw a 21-point second half lead shrink to seven on two separate occasions late after committing 23 turnovers.

“It’s been all season long. It’s just the focus and, holy cow. I don’t know, we get so loose with the basketball,” Lemmens said. “We start playing to not lose, once we lose our mojo. We gotta change that mindset. We gotta be more aggressive. We got to keep the game simple. We just lose focus.”

Rhinelander opened the second half on a 13-0 run and went up 47-26 with 7:53 to play. East responded with 14 straight, capped off by a Robbie Angiulli finish that made it a seven-point game with four minutes left. 

The Hodags got the lead back to 12 before another surge by East cut the gap to 53-46 with 1:37 remaining. Gretzinger made an and-1 on the other end and Barkus knocked down a pair of free throws to restore a 12-point gap with a minute to play. 

The Hodags limited Wausau East to 31% (18 of 59) shooting on the night. Angiulli had 15 points while Miles Casey had 13. The two were a combined 10 of 36 from the field.

“If it weren’t for turnovers and fast break points, my goodness, in the half court, they did a wonderful job,” Lemmens said of his team’s defense.

Rowan Wiczek and Gretzinger each had 16 points for Rhinelander while Barkus recorded a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. The Hodags shot 41% (21 of 51) in the contest. 

That’s a wrap

The Hodags finished the season with a record of 22-4, the most wins it has had in a single-season under Lemmens and Rhinelander’s best record since going 20-3 in the 2017-18 season. 

Though dejected, a large portion of the Hodag crowd stuck around after Saturday’s game and welcomed the team back into the gymnasium with a hearty round of applause after they returned from the locker room.

“Rhinelander has the best fans, bar none,” Lemmens said. “We are we are so fortunate to have the amount of people just turn out and cheer for us night in, night out. I hope these guys never take it for granted, and really appreciate all the support that they get from the Hodag fans. And, honestly, they earn that because these guys work hard. They put in a ton of time. They pour their heart and soul in the game, so to see it be rewarded is always nice.”

The Hodags will bring back Gretzinger and Wiczek from the starting lineup, as well as four other members of its primary bench rotation, but Lemmens admitted there will be a large void left by this senior class and plenty of work to do if the team wants to continue their success next season.

“Takes a lot of hard work,” he said. “These seniors, again, these are guys that, day in and day out, were trying to get in the gym. They were the text message, ‘Can I go in the gym? Can I go in the gym?’ You know, they were the guys on the doctor dish in the summer. They are in the weight room. They’re doing the jump rope workouts. They did so much to prepare for these moments, and now we need to find a core group that is gonna follow suit. If you’re a guard, you’ve got to be excited because there’s a lot of openings right now. So we’re looking for that guard play. We’ve got some really nice pieces returning, but we need a straw to stir the drink, and these seniors are gonna leave a big void. That’s gonna be hard to fill.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].