RHS tennis wins twice in home invite

The Rhinelander High School boys’ tennis team completed its final non-conference tune-up this past weekend at the RHS tennis courts prior to Thursday’s attempt at a historic Great Northern Conference 12-peat. 

The Hodags won two of their five matches, defeating Wausau West 4-3 on Friday and Baldwin-Woodville 5-2 on Saturday in the Northwoods Classic.

Rhinelander suffered two losses on Friday, dropping matches to Ellsworth 5-2 and River Falls 7-0. The Hodags lost Saturday morning’s opener to Hudson, 7-0.

Match tiebreakers were pivotal in both of Rhinelander’s wins on the weekend. The Hodags needed two of them to swing the result against Wausau West and won three of four tiebreakers in Saturday’s curtain-closer against Baldwin Woodville.

On Friday, Calvin Loomis prevailed in a match tiebreaker at No. 2 singles, prevailing after Wausau West’s Aidan Detert forced a pair of tiebreaks, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 10-3. The No. 2 doubles tandem of Brayden Barnhill and Kellen O’Malley rallied after dropping a first-set tiebreaker against Nathaniel Boismenue and Ethan Roberts to take the second set, and the match decider 6-7 (8), 6-4, 10-6. 

O’Malley, playing No. 4 singles on Saturday, had one of the match tiebreakers that went the Hodags’ way against Baldwin-Woodville rallying for a 3-6, 6-2, 10-8 win over Collin Sykora. The other two tiebreak wins for the Hodags came in doubles. Danek Koniar and Henry Bonardelli held on for a 6-2, 4-6, 10-3 win over Rhett Carlson and Merrick Paulson in the top flight. Roan Childs and Owen Evers were 6-1, 4-6, 10-3 winners in the second flight. 

Asher Rivord was Rhinelander’s lone three-match winner on the weekend. He earned straight-set wins at No. 1 singles against Wausau West and Baldwin-Woodville, and moved to doubles against Ellsworth where he and Koniar prevailed 6-3, 6-3 in the top flight. Bonardelli scored the Hodags’ only other win against Ellsworth, scoring a 6-2, 6-2 win over Ezra Borner at No. 3 singles.

Tiebreakers didn’t fall the Hodags’ way against Ellsworth. Lueder fell to Gavin Starbuck 6-4, 2-6, 10-8 at No. 2 singles while Childs and Evers lost 6-4, 4-6, 12-10 to Emmit Starbuck and Cameron Lutfi at No. 2 doubles. Calvin Loomis dropped a set tiebreaker that would have forced a 10-point decider at No. 1 singles with a 6-3, 7-6 (8) loss to Thomas Helseth.

Coach Matt Nichols could not be reached for comment prior to press time. 

GNC Meet ahead

    Rhinelander’s Calvin Loomis plays a point in the Northwoods Classic tennis invite at the RHS tennis courts Friday, May 15. Loomis is likely in line for the top seed at No. 2 singles in Thursday’s Great Northern Conference meet after going 4-0 in the flight during conference dual meet play. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

With the dual meet season in the rearview mirror, attention for the Hodags (15-10, 4-0 Great Northern) now turns to tournament season, chiefly Thursday’s GNC tournament at the RHS tennis courts. The Hodags hold a four-point lead over Medford in the standings as they look to secure a 12th consecutive championship. That would put them one ahead of Mosinee softball for the most consecutive GNC titles all-time.

Based on head-to-head records going into the tournament, Rhinelander should have the inside track to a title, but some of that will be determined once the field is seeded Wednesday night. 

Regardless of what happens, the Hodags figure to be guaranteed 14 points going into the tournament. They should be at least a No. 3 seed in every flight, which guarantees a pass into the semifinals and, at worst, a fourth-place finish. Six points are awarded for each flight win, four points for second, three for third and two for fourth. 

Rhinelander figures to have the inside track on the top seed at Nos. 1, 2 and 4 singles. Rivord and Calvin Loomis went 4-0 in the conference duals at the top two flights. The Hodags were a combined 4-0 at four singles between Brayden Barnhill and Mark Currie. Medford’s Ethan Jones is 2-0 at that flight but did not play there in the match against Rhinelander. 

Lueder is likely the second seed at No. 3 singles. He went 3-1 in the flight, with a head-to-head win over Ashland’s Lincoln Lemieux (3-1). Medford’s Ethan Kollmansberger is 3-0 in the flight but bumped up to No. 2 singles when the Raiders played Ashland and Lemieux defeated Lucas Mahner.

The Hodags will likely be seeded a bit lower in doubles, but Medford will have difficulty making up much ground, barring any upsets. That’s because Lakeland figures to have the inside track on at least two top seeds there. 

Lakeland’s No.1 doubles team of Andrew Colianni and Main Byram is 4-0 in conference in the flight, while Marshall Czlapinski and Jayden Shepski are 3-0 at No. 2, and shifted over to singles against Pacelli where the T-Birds earned a forfeit win. 

While Mahner and Austin Czarneski of Medford are 3-0 at No. 3 singles, they picked up a forfeit win when they played Lakeland, and the T-Birds were unbeaten with three different combinations there in the other conference matches.

Rhinelander figures to have the inside track at the second seed at No. 1 doubles as Koniar and Bonardelli’s only loss in conference was to Colianni and Byram. They beat Medford’s Christian Preuss and Cash Thums in a match tiebreaker back on April 16.

The Hodags went 2-2 at Nos. 2 and 3 doubles, using three different combinations in each flight. 

After beating Pacelli 7-0 May 11 and clinching a 4-0 dual mark in conference play, Nichols said the four-point buffer the Hodags will take into Thursday’s conference meet could be critical. Since the GNC’s inception in 2009, every boys’ team that has entered the tournament in first place in the standings has gone on to win the overall conference title.

“How it shakes out with the seeding with such a small conference, every single flight, it’s gonna be an important win because a lot of those flights, there’s gonna be points regardless,” Nichols said. “It’s gonna be huge and that four-point (margin) could make all the difference come the end of the day.”

The conference meet kicks off at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].