Raiders fly by Robins, but Old Abes take off in second half
MEDFORD GIRLS BASKETBALL
The Medford Raiders weren’t able to carry a strong first-half effort into the second-half Tuesday and fell 52-38 at Eau Claire Memorial.
With the loss, Medford finished 2-2 in four road games this season against Big Rivers Conference opponents. This one, against the now 6-8 Old Abes, was made more difficult when the Raiders’ lone senior, Marissa Fronk, was sidelined by a nagging ankle injury that resurfaced and knocked her out after just five minutes of play.
“We played really hard,” head coach Greg Klapatauskas said after the Raiders fell to 9-6 overall. “Considering how long Marissa was out, for us to hang in there and battle and not really lose our composure was good, at least in the first half. In the second half, they made their run. We just got tired and couldn’t keep up. Having that one less body really took a lot out of us.”
The Raiders fell behind 6-0 at the start, but they battled back and took four small leads. Memorial, though, closed the half with an 8-0 surge that gave the Old Abes a 28-21 lead and they carried the momentum into the second half with nine more consecutive points to gain firm control of the contest.
Memorial’s lead got as high as 20 in the second half.
Medford’s first key run was a 7-0 spurt that gave the Raiders a 10-9 lead. Autumn Krause got a backcourt steal and knocked down a 3-pointer, Rynn Ruesch filled the lane on a secondary break and took an assist from Laurissa Klapatauskas and Lydia Pernsteiner got a shot in the lane to fall. Krause’s second 3-pointer of the night put Medford ahead 13-11, Ruesch scored at the rim with her left hand for a 15-14 lead and, after they fell behind by four, the Raiders got 3-pointers from Martha Miller and Katie Brehm to go up 21-20 with just over two minutes left.
But Memorial’s Lilly Cayley answered Brehm’s triple with one of her own, Bella Tangley knocked down another and Tessa Hazelton got a late steal and assist to Tessa Ross to open up the Abes’ sevenpoint lead.
“We were battling and then they hit a couple of shots to finish it,” Greg Klapatauskas said. “If we could’ve stayed a little closer than seven at half it would’ve helped.”
Brenna Lasher scored seven of the nine points in Memorial’s opening run to the second half. After the lead hit 43-23, Bryn Fronk scored and Krause hit her third and final trifecta to make it 43-28 but that was as close as the Raiders would get until Bryn Fronk’s score in the final seconds.
Krause led Medford with 11 points, Bryn Fronk scored eight and Miller and Ruesch scored five apiece. Sophie Brost chipped in with four, Brehm finished with three and Pernsteiner wound up with two. Brehm was the rebounding leader with five, Bryn Fronk had three assists and three steals. Miller and Ruesch had three steals apiece and Krause and Marissa Fronk had two each. Ruesch blocked two shots.
Eau Claire Memorial was very balanced, getting points from eight players led by Lasher’s 10 and nine from Hazelton and Tangley.
“I was really pleased with our first half,” Klapatauskas said. “In the second half, I think, A, we got tired, and B, when we got physically tired, then we got mentally tired and started forcing things.
One less body to rotate through makes a difference.
“We talked, we communicated, we hustled,” he added. “If we could’ve played two halves like we did that first half, it would’ve been a much closer game. We just couldn’t find a way to get that done.”
Medford’s busy end-of-season schedule isn’t letting up this week. The Raiders have added a non-conference road trip to Marshfield for tonight, Thursday, and they’ll go to D.C. Everest on Monday to face another Wisconsin Valley Conference foe.
The Raiders did lose a Friday trip to Tomahawk when the Hatchets informed the rest of the Great Northern Conference last week they were forfeiting the rest of their conference games due to low numbers. The league standings now show all wins against the winless Hatchets have been taken off teams’ GNC records, but they still count in the overall records.
So, that leaves Medford at 6-3 in league play with one game left Feb. 5 against the 5-3 Rhinelander Hodags. At 7-1, Mosinee has now clinched at least a conference championship tie with games remaining against Rhinelander Friday and Northland Pines Feb. 5. Lakeland is 6-3 and tied with Medford. The T-Birds’ last GNC game is at Antigo Friday.
Medford 69, Antigo 39
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Bryn Fronk sparked a 10-0 last-minute surge in the first half Friday and from there the Raiders pulled away for a 69-39 win over Antigo at Raider Hall to complete a season sweep of the Red Robins, who fell to 2-7 in the GNC and overall.
The first 17 minutes were a struggle as Medford couldn’t get shots to fall and had trouble rebounding on the defensive end. But then Fronk hit those 3s from the right wing, Brost sank two bonus free throws with 12.6 seconds left and a Miller steal led to Marissa Fronk’s driving shot in the lane that beat the buzzer. Suddenly, a slim 20-19 lead turned into a 30-19 halftime edge.
“That last minute (the Robins) thought they were in the game and then we got just enough breathing room,” Greg Klapatauskas said. He said after that run he noticed the team’s energy pick up in the second half. “I told them at halftime that it’s OK to play with emotion. We can’t play flatlined. When good things happen, it’s OK to get excited. It’s OK to have fun. Use that adrenaline. It will fuel us as we go ahead. Don’t let the bad things break us, but at the same time use that energy with something good happening.”
The 10-0 run to end the first half turned into a 12-3 run to start the second half that pushed Medford’s lead to 42-22. Krause got it started with a left-wing 3-pointer, Ruesch made a nice move inside to score with the left hand and Miller scored off a Marissa Fronk steal and assist for a 37-20 lead. Marissa Fronk went coast-to- coast to score and answer a basket by Antigo’ Sophie Schlieve and Krause sank another triple. Miller’s putback of a Pernsteiner miss and Pernsteiner’s aggressive end-to-end drive after a defensive rebound by Miller maintained the 20-point advantage.
Ruesch, Laurissa Klapatauskas, Krause, Miller, Hope Faude and Bryn Fronk all contributed to the scoring in the last seven minutes as Medford’s lead got as high as 31.
With the increase in energy, Greg Klapatauskas said small adjustments on the back end made Medford’s press more effective in the second half and the Raiders benefited from more patience on offense while breaking down Antigo’s zone.
“We needed to just keep working the ball and making them move,” he said.
Marissa Fronk’s 16 points led Medford, but she got plenty of help. Bryn Fronk finished with 13 points, Krause had nine on three second-half 3s, Ruesch scored eight and Miller added seven.
Pernsteiner and Klapatauskas added four points each, Katie Brehm and Faude scored three each and Brost finished with two.
“Sophie and Lydia played well,” Klapatauskas said. ‘Lydia was hustling all over the place and Sophie played strong. She makes good choices and she’s a good shooter. We had balanced scoring. Thirteen, seven, eight, nine and 16 points. That’s five players who probably would’ve been in double digits had they played the whole game.”
Lonna Weix scored 12 points and Greta Parsons added 10 for Antigo, who had 18 offensive rebounds in the game, but Medford solidified that area as the game went on and wound up outrebounding the Robins 41-35. Medford forced 36 turnovers and wound up shooting 39.6% overall from the field after making just eight of 28 shots in the first half.
Marissa Fronk had eight steals and six assists. Klapatauskas had seven rebounds, while Bryn Fronk had six and Marissa Fronk, Krause and Ruesch had five apiece.
Medford’s Thaddeus Sigmund avoids getting caught in a bad position during his 9-0 major decision over Tomahawk’s Presley Gutbrod that clinched his 106-pound GNC championship Saturday.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
Medford’s Kayden Dassow clinches third place and honorable mention at 145 pounds with a 57-second pin of Antigo’s Ezekiel Fobes Saturday.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
