Hodag softball looks toward regionals

After a lopsided loss to Mosinee at Haug Diamond Thursday, May 14, the Rhinelander High School softball team will now look to their first playoff game against Antigo on May 26.

“Our mindset now moving forward is we have Antigo,” head coach Ali Bender said after Mosinee routed the Hodags 29-0 in five innings. “We just need to keep practicing and getting better because I feel that we can have a good chance against Antigo.”

In the regular season, the Hodags split with fellow GNC opponent Antigo, beating the Red Robins 9-7 in the Hodag Dome April 9 on an Ava Rathbun walkoff home run, but got shut out in five innings when they traveled south on May 5. The rubber game will be settled Thursday in WIAA regional playoffs. 

Heading into the postseason, Bender noted that the mentality her team needs to move forward with is that the hits will come with continued hard contact off the bat.

“It’s just timely,” she said. “That’s the thing that I keep telling these girls. The hits that are going right at (the opponent), eventually, we’re going to make solid contact, and it’s going to, you know, hit a gap or a hole.”

The Hodags only tallied one hit in Thursday’s game against Mosinee, and it came from senior Neveah Anderson. Rhinelander was down to its last out of the game, and Anderson sent one to left to break up a combined no-hitter from Mosinee pitchers Ava Busse and Allyson Timm. 

“I was super proud of her,” Bender said. “All year long, she’s been a positive leader in our program, and just a key asset to have on our team.”

Bender also noted the team’s improvement against starting pitcher Busse from the last contest with the Indians on April 21. Busse had six strikeouts in three innings during the last meeting, but only two in her three innings pitched on May 14. 

“The thing I’m most proud of tonight was our hitting against Busse. The first time we faced her we basically struck out every single time ... (tonight), we put the ball in play, and some of those hits are going to fall.”

    Rhinelander’s Kendall Vanney fires a pitch in the second inning of a GNC conference game against Mosinee on May 14 at Haug Diamond. Vanney pitched three and two-thirds innings, tallying the only strikeout for the Hodags in the 29-0 loss to Mosinee. (Blake Richard/River News)
  

The Hodag pitching duo of Kendall Vanney and Aleece Johnson gave up 28 hits to the Indians, including four home runs that brought around nine runs alone. Bender and her coaching staff swapped the hurlers throughout the game to try and keep Mosinee off balance. 

“They were hitting Aleece hard, and we thought, OK, let’s try something different,” Bender said. “We put Vanney in, she got us out of (the first inning), she got us through a few more innings, and then they started to time up Vanney, and so it was, we’re going to try Aleece again.”

Vanney recorded the only strikeout for the Hodags in the top of the third inning. 

The Hodags finished the regular season with a 10-14 record.

Blake Richard may be reached via email at [email protected].