Team review: RHS boys’ basketball

It was certainly another strong year for the Rhinelander High School boys’ basketball team, even if its ending left the Hodags wanting more out of it.

Rhinelander went 22-4 on the year — the most wins it’s had in a season in coach Derek Lemmens’ 16-year tenure — and parlayed that success into a third consecutive Great Northern Conference championship. The Hodags hoped that would translate into its first trip to sectionals since 2022, but Rhinelander once again saw its season end at the hands of a team from the Big Rivers Conference, falling to Menomonie in the WIAA regional finals. 

With a senior-led roster and hopes of a deep WIAA tournament run, that made the ending of the season bittersweet.

“These guys have poured their heart and soul into this program. So proud of them. They reinvigorated it,” Lemmens said after the loss to Menomonie. “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.”

Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.

Game of the year

For a third straight year, Rhinelander’s Great Northern Conference title hopes hinged on winning the final game of the regular season. 

What transpired Feb. 26 was nothing less than an instant classic. 

The Hodags rallied from down as many as 11 points in the second half and defeated Mosinee in double overtime 75-73 on the road. The win allowed Rhinelander to share the conference title with the Indians. 

Rhinelander trailed virtually the entire contest. The Hodags finally took a brief lead on a Devon Feck 3 with 2:15 left in the second half — part of a career-high 33-point effort from the senior guard. 

Mosinee was denied on a chance to win the game in regulation. Feck missed a potential game-winner in the first overtime session. Sophomore Tommy Eades came up huge off the bench, scoring four points in the second overtime while forcing what proved to be the game-deciding turnover with the Hodags protecting a two-point lead in the final seconds. 

It was a physical, emotional — and sometimes chaotic — way the end the season, which Lemmens said was much more about heart and desire than anything else.

“It had nothing to do with anything drawn up on a board. That was guys saying, ‘we’re not losing,’” he said.

Of course it helped that Rhinelander had plenty of motivation to avenge its only conference loss of the season, a 75-61 loss to Mosinee Jan. 16 at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. Mosinee students, players and coaches celebrated on the Hodag logo after that game. A picture of the group posing with what appeared to be a horns down gesture — the index and pinky fingers pointing to the ground — several minutes after the final horn was posted on the high school activities Facebook page. The Hodags enlarged that photo and hung it in the visitors locker room prior to the rematch.

“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.

Struggles to finish

While the Hodags put together an impressive record, they did have a penchant for struggling to close out games — something that eventually led to the team’s ouster against Menomonie. Rhinelander was outscored 33-13 over the final 8 1/2 minutes of that game as a six-point lead turned into a 65-51 defeat. 

That wasn’t the first time the Hodags struggled down the stretch. Mosinee outscored Rhinelander 19-6 over the final 5 1/2 minutes when the teams met in Rhinelander. The Hodags nearly blew a 12-point lead Jan. 20 in Shawano but survived, 56-55 when Jackson Nordin’s putback attempt at the buzzer rolled off the iron.

The Hodags held a 21-point lead in the playoff opener against Wausau East in the second half only to watch it shrink to seven before holding on to win.

But the biggest second-half fade of all came with a 14-point lead and less than seven minutes to play against River Falls in what was, presumptively, a battle for the top-seed between the two teams late in the regular season. The Wildcats ended regulation on a 10-0 run, sent the game to overtime and eventually won, 70-69.

“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.”

Boxed in

    In this Feb. 26, 2026 file photo, Rhinelander’s Devon Feck attempts a 3 over Mosinee’s Will Harris during overtime of a GNC boys’ basketball game in Mosinee Thursday. Feck, who was named GNC co-player of the year this winter, averaged 19.7 points per game and shot just less than 47% from 3-point range on the season. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Feck became the straw that stirred the drink for the Hodags. Not only did he score a team-best 19.7 points per game and shot just under 47% on the year from 3-point range, he also averaged 5.2 assists per contest. 

The majority of the teams played Feck straight up during the regular season however, once the postseason came around, teams did everything they could to make Feck a non-factor. 

Wausau East employed a box-and-one defense against Feck, holding him to eight points on 1 of 4 shooting and two assists. Menomonie did the same a night later holding him to six points on 2 of 6 shooting with three assists.

The end result was two of the least efficient nights all season for the Hodags, offensively. The Hodags shot 41.2% against Wausau East and 39.2% against Menomonie — their fourth- and third-worst shooting night of the year. 

Rhinelander committed a season-high 23 turnovers against Wausau East and followed that with a 20-turnover night against Menomonie.

“Another night of box (and-one). We felt confident, like, 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 after the Menomonie game. “We just continued to have a hard time finding gaps in that and playing without Devon being the core of our offense.

Statbook

    In this March 7, 2026 file photo, 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. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

While Feck was the primary offensive threat, the Hodags spread the wealth around — particularly with its starting five. 

Abe Gretzinger (14.0 ppg) and Jatyn Barkus (10.0 ppg) also averaged double figures in scoring while Evan Shoeder came close at 9.5 points per game to go along with a team-best 8.2 rebounds per contest. 

Rowan Wiczek averaged six points per game, but had a career-high 16 in the playoff win over Wausau East.

Not surprisingly, all five earned all-Great Northern Conference honors. Feck was a unanimous first-team selection and shared player of the year honors with Mylo Albrecht of Northland Pines. Gretzinger also made the first team, Shoeder was on the second team and Barkus and Wiczek both received honorable mention.

“Throughout the season, so many different games where different guys stepped up,” Lemmens said. “So many times where someone was to follow trouble or someone just wasn’t having a game that they’re capable of having someone else stepped up to me. That was the beauty of this team. The number of games that we had four to five guys with double digits showed the unselfishness and just the desire to win.”

What’s next

Rhinelander is going to have some monumental shoes to fill with graduation of Feck, Barkus and Shoeder, along with fellow senior Caden Sieker who was unable to play the last two seasons due to shoulder injuries. 

“The impact that these guys have had, program-wide, is remarkable,” Lemmens said. “When you look at, when you go to any school, you will never see a group of kids sitting as close as they can in the bench, so that they can get high fives and be near the place. The type of culture and the type of just all around community that they’ve built within our basketball program — by being involved the way they are, by truly caring about the kids the way they do — is remarkable.” 

Rhinelander will have Gretzinger and Wiczek back from the starting lineup, but whether the Hodags will have a legitimate shot at a fourth straight conference title will likely hinge upon whether the team’s bench — inconsistent during the 2025-26 season — can make a significant leap.

Eades, fellow sophomore Vince White and juniors Conner Rappley and Sawyer Bishop showed flashes at points of the season, but they combined to average just 7.7 points per game while the Hodags’ starting five averaged 58.2 points per game.

“Takes a lot of hard work,” Lemmens 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 Dr. 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].