‘We just didn’t finish’ Superb season ends with stunning sectional loss

WIAA DIV. 2 BOYS BASKETBALL

Superb season ends with stunning sectional loss

The Medford Raiders were well aware their record-setting boys basketball season could end during sectional weekend of the WIAA Division 2 tournament.

This, however, was not the crushing end they were expecting.

Taking advantage of the Raiders’ inability to score in the final 4:35, the Rice Lake Warriors closed Thursday’s sectional semifinal on a 9-0 run that was capped by Nolan Rowe’s go-ahead free throws with 28.8 seconds left. Medford got off three shots to try to regain the lead in that time and none fell, giving the Warriors, who came into the game at 9-12, a stunning 52-51 win.

The Raiders finished 24-3 and without the chance they desperately wanted to go to number-one ranked Onalaska Saturday and take their best shot against one of the state’s elite teams. Onalaska (18-0) buried Rice Lake 49-23 to win the sectional title.

Without question, this one is going to sting for awhile.

“It stinks to lose, but I’m just really, really proud of this group,” a dejected head coach Ryan Brown said after Raider Hall had cleared out more than 30 minutes after final buzzer sounded. “They’ve given everything you could ever expect them to give. They played their hearts out all season long. They’ve been working to get to this point since they were little. Our seniors have been great leaders this year. We’ve had great chemistry and they left everything out on the floor.

“Ultimately, tonight, we just didn’t finish the game like we have all year,” he added. “We had opportunities to put the game away. You just give Rice Lake credit for getting stops and then us missing a free throw or an opportunity. Things that we’ve done all year to close games, we didn’t do and then they took advantage of it on the other end making some big shots that closed the gap and ultimately got them the lead.”

A back-and-forth game through 24 minutes finally tilted Medford’s way in the middle of the second half. Down 38-36, the Raiders got 3-pointers on back-toback possessions from Joe Sullivan, one that busted the Warriors’ 2-3 zone and another against their man-to-man.

After a couple of defensive stops, Brady Hupf nailed a 3-pointer from the left corner to up Medford’s lead to 45-38 with 9:10 to play. Nick Schlampp answered with a triple for Rice Lake, but a Logan Baumgartner free throw and then his 3-pointer from just left of the circle with 6:11 left gave the Raiders their biggest lead at 49-41.

Hupf answered a Tyler Orr bucket with a hoop and harm in the low block and chance to push the lead to nine at the 4:35 mark. The free throw missed, keeping the lead at 51-43. At that point, it felt to Raider Nation that one more big shot might be the final dagger that put the Warriors away.

It never came.

Alex Belongia started Rice Lake’s rally with a wide-open left corner 3 at the 4:13 mark. The Raiders took almost 90 seconds off the clock on their next possession but turned the ball over. Hupf returned the favor, getting a steal with 2:09 to go.

Baumgartner attacked from the left, but Belongia knocked the ball out of the sophomore’s hands and off his foot before it went out of bounds, giving the ball back to the Warriors. Orr, though, missed a 3-pointer that was rebounded by Baker, again putting Medford in good shape.

Hupf missed inside and the Warriors turned that into a Rowe free throw with 1:10 left. Baker’s bonus free throw with 58.2 seconds left rattled in and out and went out of bounds. The Warriors got the 50/50 call on possession, leading to a rain-making from the right corner by the left-handed Schlampp that somehow eluded the block attempt of Baumgartner and found nothing but net to make it 51-50 with 39.5 seconds left. It was Schlampp’s sixth 3-ball of the night, accounting for all of his game-high 18 points.

The Raiders missed another bonus throw with 30.3 seconds left and were called for a foul on the rebound, which gave Rowe his go-ahead free throws. Baker missed from the right block, but Baumgartner dug out the rebound and appeared to draw contact on the putback from the left side but no whistle blew. Ben Brodzinski got the rebound for Rice Lake and was fouled with five seconds left. He missed his bonus throw, giving the Raiders time for one last shot. Sullivan brought the ball into the front court and dropped a pass to Hupf, who got off a runner from just inside the free throw line that came up short off the rim.

“I really felt like we got to a certain point with our lead, but a couple of opportunities we missed and they capitalized on them to keep it close enough,” Brown said. “Every time it looked like we were going to get up by eight, nine or 10 points, they seemed to make a play to bring it back down to three or four. Late in the game, I thought we controlled the ball well and then we just missed some opportunities at the rim or at the free throw that could have extended that lead.”

For the third straight tournament game, Medford’s opponent stayed in the game with 3-point shooting. Merrill and Rhinelander hit nine apiece in the regional rounds. Rice Lake knocked down 10 of 23 3-point tries, including six of 13 in the second half. Schlampp made three in each half and was six of 12 from long range. The Raiders held Orr, Rice Lake’s leading scorer, in check as he finished with 12 points, including just two of four from deep.

The overall shooting percentages were nearly identical. Medford shot 47.7% overall (21 of 44) but was six of 18 from behind the arc. Rice Lake shot 47.4% (18 of 38) but took just 15 of those shots from inside the arc.

“They did (shoot 3s well),” Brown said. “I thought, especially Logan and Joe, did a good job of getting on the shooters. But you give them credit, they made some super-contested 3s.”

Another key was the free throw shooting. Both teams shot nine as the officials let the teams play. Rice Lake made six, while Medford made only three.

“It’s tough,” Brown said. “We felt like there were some times inside there was contact and for whatever reason it wasn’t called. We have to keep fighting through that and we did. We kept working hard. You just give Rice Lake credit.”

Medford’s offense sizzled early. The Raiders patiently broke down Rice Lake’s man-to-man defense and scored on four of their first five possessions. Retterath scored off a Hupf offensive rebound and assist and then took it to the rack himself for the first four points. Hupf’s strong post moves made it 6-0 and 8-5. Retterath scored again in the lane to tie the game at 10-10 and scores by Hupf and Peyton Kuhn put Medford up 14-10.

The Raiders cooled off, however, when the Warriors switched to a 2-3 zone for the remainder of the half. Still, a Baker 3-pointer put Medford up 17-16 and backto- back steals by Baumgartner led to his own hoop and one for Baker that made it 21-16 with 7:54 left in the half. Out of the timeout, the Raiders got a stop and Baumgartner’s long pass found Kuhn, who made a tough off-balance lay-in to push the lead to seven.

Orr and Schlampp came right back with 3s and Rowe scored to put Rice Lake on top. The lead traded hands three times after that with Kuhn’s bucket with 29 seconds to go in the half giving the Raiders a 28-27 lead at the break.

“We did a good job of getting inside and moving the ball,” Brown said. “They went to the zone to slow us down. It wasn’t that we didn’t get good shots against it. We just weren’t making many outside shots and they were really trying to keep Brady out of it by collapsing on him. We made some adjustments in the second half and I thought we did a good job against their zone and got them out of it.

“Defensively we weren’t quite in great position always in the first half,” he said. “I thought in the second half we did better. You need to give them credit, they hit their shots when they needed to.”

The lead continued to see-saw early in the second half. Baker’s three-point play gave Medford a 33-30 edge. Schlampp’s 3 tied it. Orr’s triple put Rice Lake up 36-35, Baumgartner’s free throw tied it and Belongia’s offensive stickback put the Warriors up 38-36. That set the stage for Sullivan’s 3s and the run that seemingly was going to put Medford over the top.

“Joey was huge,” Brown said. “Early on, Nate Retterath got us going with a number of shots, and then we got it into Brady. That was kind of our first half. Joey was the zone buster in that second half. That really got our energy going. I thought between Peyton and Logan, they got a number of good looks that were going to go in. They were just in and out. Joey and Brady really kept us going in that second half. For the other guys, they got good looks, it just wasn’t our night to knock down the shots.”

Hupf’s 15 points led Medford. He was seven of 11 from the field, dished out four assists and had four rebounds. Sullivan scored nine points, while Baker had eight points and five rebounds. The Warriors held Baumgartner to seven points, though he had five assists, four steals and seven rebounds. Kuhn, obviously not at 100% after injuring his ankle the previous week, was held to six points and none in the second half. He had three assists. Retterath had six points, five rebounds and two assists.

“It takes nothing away from these seniors and this team and how hard they worked to get here,” Brown said. “They have the most wins in school history and to do some of the things they did in the GNC and our regional was outstanding. It always hurts to lose and we really wanted the opportunity to play the number- one team in the state. That’s what playoff basketball is about. You have to bring it every night. It wasn’t a lack of bringing it, but you’ve got to be on your A-game. You get to the sectionals and you need to be on your game.”

Kuhn, Hupf, Baker, Retterath and Owen Wipf will be a tough senior class to replace. Brown said there certainly are players on the roster who can lead Medford back to contention next winter.

“I think we have a number of good pieces,” he said. “The kids are going to have to work hard because we’re going to lose a lot, especially with just the strength and the physical aspect that you get from seniors like Brady, Nate, Ty and Peyton. They’re just physically strong kids. Then we had guys like Owen that just defend and do whatever you asked.

“I was really blessed this year to have Owen and Chubs (Guden) because they would do whatever I needed,” he continued. “If I needed them to play a lot and they had to step in, they played great. Joe was that way too. He was almost like a sixth starter. If we were in games like we were in playoffs where we only played six or seven guys in the second half, they were OK with whatever the team needed. That took a lot of pressure off me to make the decisions I needed to make that were best for us. They were willing to do whatever it took to help us. We lose a lot, but we lost a lot last year, so now it’s up to those younger guys to step up and work hard and get stronger and hopefully we come back next year just as strong.”

Medford’s Nate Retterath gets to the rim and puts the Raiders up 4-0 in the early going during Thursday’s sectional semifinal.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS

Raider senior Brady Hupf thinks about attacking while defended by Rice Lake’s Nolan Rowe during a time-killing possession late in Thursday’s second half. Rowe later hit the go-ahead free throws with 28.8 seconds left in the Warriors’ 52-51 win.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS

The reality sets in for Medford senior Peyton Kuhn seconds after the final horn sounds in the Raiders’ season-ending 52-51 upset loss to Rice Lake Thursday.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS