MEDFORD GIRLS SOCCER - Soccer puts chill on Mosinee, falls at home to Rhinelander
MEDFORD GIRLS SOCCER
On a cold, damp, windy night where most other sports canceled, the Medford and Mosinee girls soccer teams fought through it Tuesday with the Raiders earning a 1-0 win on the grass at Mosinee’s Edgewood Park.
Kodi Rappe scored the game’s only goal in the first half and Peyton Boelk stopped all five shots the Indians put on goal as the Raiders evened their Great Northern Conference record at 4-4 with two league games to go. The additional notch in the win column was also hoped to have helped Medford’s cause in WIAA Division 3 tournament seeding, which took place Wednesday night.
“This is a big week,” Medford head coach Tanya Tessmann said. “We had to play the extra game Monday, it’s finals week, the seniors have all of their doings. It’s a busy, long week. It was good for the girls to pull this one off.
“It took a little while to adjust to the grass and it was wet,” she added. “Mosinee played fast and passed well. They’ve definitely improved. I thought our communication was better than it was Monday. Hopefully we’ll continue to see that get better going into Thursday.”
Medford (5-9-1 overall) used a sevengoal second-half explosion to beat Mosinee 8-0 back on April 29. The Raiders put pressure on Mosinee’s defense again, taking 27 shots and putting 16 of those on goal. The Indians, for the most part, stood up that challenge. Tessmann said it’s obvious Mosinee has taken a more defensive strategic approach in the second half of the season.
The Raiders broke through Mosinee’s defense at the 32:50 mark of the first half. Bayley Metz, who had a good shot stopped in the game’s fourth minute, got a long pass up ahead to Kodi Rappe, creating a one-on-one chance for Rappe with the Mosinee keeper, which Rappe won, getting her seventh goal of the season and third in GNC play.
Medford outshot Mosinee 11-2 in the first half and 16-3 in the second half. Shayla Radlinger led Medford in shots with six. Megan Schaefer had five, Talyn Peterson had four and seven others had at least one.
Boelk made a tough save in the 42nd minute and, in the 50th minute, Peterson chased down and broke up a potential breakaway opportunity. Chloe Kapitz cut off another Mosinee scoring chance at 63 minutes and Boelk had another key save with five minutes left to hold the lead.
The game was Medford’s last road game of the regular season. Tonight, Thursday, the Raiders host Lakeland (7-1, 11-2-2), who is still hoping to catch Rhinelander for the GNC championship. The T-Birds won the first meeting 3-0 on May 1. The regular season ends next week with Medford hosting last-place Antigo on Tuesday and a good Ashland squad for a May 29 non-conference games.
All three games are set to kick off at 7 p.m.
Hodags 4, Raiders 0
Rhinelander held onto control of first place in the GNC Monday with a 4-0 win over Medford at Raider Field in a game postponed four days by Thursday’s storms.
The Raiders made the Hodags work for it, especially early, but Rhinelander standout Sophia Miljevich broke the ice with a perfect shot at 32:06 and a goal with 14 seconds left in the first half was a back breaker, putting the Raiders in a tough 2-0 hole.
Medford had two shots on goal, one by Peterson and one by Audrey Ruesch. Rhinelander’s potent offense got 20 shots off with Boelk collecting six saves.
The Hodags came into the game with the top three scorers in the GNC, which led Medford to employ a defensive-minded game plan. Tessmann said altering the formation, adding Peterson as a back-line defender, may have had its plusses and minuses in hindsight.
“There were times where you could tell girls weren’t in their normal positions,” Tessmann said. “We went with four in the back. We weren’t as tight as I think we would have been if that was something we had been doing all season.”
Miljevich has been the focal point of defenses all season and her goal-scoring numbers are a little down. But the senior came in with 21 GNC points with seven goals and seven assists. At 32:06, she took a pass along the right sideline from sister Ella Miljevich, took a few dribbles and snuck a shot between Boelk and the right post.
Not long after that, Peterson made a tremendous play for Medford, sprinting the width of the field to block a pointblank breakaway chance for Sophia Miljevich. The key second goal in the half’s final seconds started with a steal and a through ball from Mia Tulowitzky that found Lindsey Hoerchler. As she dribbled in from the left side, the Raiders lost track of the trailing Jordan Manske, who tapped in the crossing pass.
Hoerchler got the third goal early in the second half at 45-14. Off a corner kick, the Raiders were unable to clear the bouncing ball and the Hodags’ second shot of the scrum found its way in.
“We spend a great deal of time in practice working on marking on corner kick,” Tessmann said. “We were marking good at the start of that one, but it took some bounces and we didn’t get it out.”
At 62:02, Ella Heck put in the rebound off a hard Sophia Miljevich shot on goal.
Tessmann said one positive in the loss was holding Rhinelander’s other top scorers, Vivian Lamers and Ella Miljevich without a goal or assist.
“Talyn had a great game, we had her on the back line with Chloe Kapitz,” Tessmann said. “Mallory Richter on the right wing had a strong game. Amelia Pernsteiner had one of her better games. We wanted to make sure we controlled the middle. I felt we were getting to their players right away and forced them to pass it back and slowed them down. We did that much better than we did in the first game against them (a 5-0 loss on April 24).”
Bayley Metz clears the ball out of the top of the box area before Rhinelander can get a scoring chance during second-half action Monday. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
