WEEK 7 FOOTBALL - Hatchets and Hornets in for Medford, Gilman homecomings
Homecoming celebrations are taking place throughout Taylor County this week, highlighted by two football games that will kick off at 7 p.m. Friday in Medford and Gilman.
Unfortunately, the third game will not happen as injuries caught up to the Rib Lake Redmen after last week’s loss at Prentice. The Redmen had been playing with a razor-thin margin the past five weeks, but the decision was made Tuesday they couldn’t go any further with their season and they have forfeited Friday’s homecoming game to sixth-ranked and undefeated Flambeau.
In Medford’s first Friday home game in six weeks, the Raiders again will look to rebound after a major disappointment. They did it two weeks ago against thenunbeaten Lakeland. This time, 5-1 Tomahawk comes to town as the Raiders try to forget a 31-8 thumping handed to them last week by Wausau East.
The GNC’s smallest school and in just its second year back in the football conference, Tomahawk enters the final three regular-season games in great shape to earn at least a share of the conference title. Their run toward an unbeaten season ended last week with a 21-14 home loss to Mosinee, but at 3-1, they are still in a three-way tie atop the league with Merrill and Mosinee.
“They’re very, very good,” Medford head coach Ted Wilson said. “They’re very well-coached, they play really hard and they have very good athletes. They have a lot of good athletes and they’re 5-1 for a reason. They’re physical, they run well to the ball and they play hard. We’ll have our hands full. We’ll especially have our hands full if we don’t start working toward become more consistent players.”
Tomahawk’s roster features several members of its WIAA Division 2 state championship hockey team from a year ago and is a team Medford’s coaching staff was impressed by last year even though the Raiders won convincingly 38-7. Dewey Reilly, a top athlete at Tomahawk in the mid-1990s, is both the head football and hockey coach.
Sophomore Max Larson is the leading rusher so far with 463 yards and six touchdowns, while senior Rex Reilly has 308 yards and five scores. The Hatchets have had some injury issues at times at quarterback. When healthy, sophomore Cash Olsen has completed 45.8% of his passes (11 of 24) for 240 yards, four scores and only one pick. Senior Jonah Dickens is a big-play receiver with five of his nine catches going for touchdowns. Senior Ethan Gibeault, a second-team All-GNC choice last year on both sides of the ball, is listed at 6-3, 280 pounds and is the leader of Tomahawk’s linemen.
The Hatchets run a fairly no-nonsense straight-ahead style of offense and on defense, they get the ball quickly and are physical tacklers. Tomahawk has allowed just 11 points per game.
In Gilman, the undefeated and topranked 8-player team in the state will welcome Alma Center Lincoln for the Pirates’ homecoming contest.
The Hornets are sitting in third place in the North Central East Conference at 3-2. They are 3-3 overall. Lincoln lost a tough one to visiting Owen-Withee on Friday 2014, a game that turned on two big special teams plays, a long kickoff return and a touchdown on a fake punt. Lincoln has a couple of quality wins, having beaten Thorp 16-12 in conference play and New Auburn 30-28 in a North Central Conference crossover.
The Pirates improved to 5-0, 6-0 Friday with a 52-0 win at Thorp.
Still a team that prefers to throw the football more than run it, Gilman head coach Robin Rosemeyer said there are some differences offensively under Lincoln’s new head coach, Nate Jahn.
“They still do a lot of shotgun spread,” Rosemeyer said. “Sometimes they’ll put tight ends in. They do a lot of different things and they’re hard to prepare for that way. It’s kind of a hodge-podge offense where they’re going to give you a bunch of different formations, whether it’s double tight or trips and everything in between. Fortunately it’s similar stuff sometimes to what Thorp did so we can keep the same defensive principles with who we have on the field and how we’re going to handle things.”
Gilman hasn’t had any trouble yet with Alma Center Lincoln, having won the five 8-player matchups since 2020 by an average score of 48 points.
