Union shuts out Raiders; strong effort by Medford at home

MEDFORD GIRLS HOCKEY

The Medford Raiders didn’t commit a penalty but got hurt on two of their own power plays in a 7-0 loss to the Wisconsin Valley Union Co-op Thursday night in Marshfield.

Two of the Union’s first four goals came short-handed, including the first goal of the game that sparked a surge of three goals in three minutes in the latter stages of the first period that broke the game open.

The Raiders, playing their second game in three days after almost 20 days off, fell to 0-4 for the season, while the nine-school Union improved to 2-5.

Wisconsin Valley outshot the Raiders 28-9 with Madison Wagner-Duerr getting the shutout in goal. Medford’s Eryka Seidl had 21 saves, including 10 on 11 shots in the second period, in her secondever start between the pipes. The Union’s 28 shots were the fewest Medford has allowed in a game so far this winter.

The game was scoreless until the 10:04 mark of the opening period when Sophie Saunders got free with the puck and beat Seidl for an unassisted, short-handed goal. Tayler Furguson scored off an Ella Beilke assist at 12:35 and Mya Cullen made it 3-0 just 30 seconds later, assisted by Kaydence McGregor.

The Union’s only goal of the second period was another short-handed tally, this time off the stick of Leah Paveski.

Saunders used a Beilke assist to make it 5-0 at the 9:56 mark of the third period and Elizabeth Ellenich pushed the lead to six at 11:22 with a Pavelski assist. Hailey Cashmer closed the scoring off a Cullen assist with 56 seconds left.

The Raiders are home twice next week. First, they’ll get a 6 p.m. rematch on Tuesday with the Black River Falls Co-op that beat them 11-0 in the season opener on Nov. 23. On Jan. 6, they’ll host the Baraboo-based Badger Lightning Coop with the face-off slated for 7 p.m.

Pines 7, Medford 1

Sidelined by weather-related schedule changes for three straight dates, the Raiders finally got back to competition on Dec. 21 and showed glimpses of why the coaches are excited about the future of their young squad.

While Northland Pines skated away with a 7-1 win during the long-awaited home opener at the Simek Recreation Center, the Raiders showed progress in all phases of the game, putting 15 shots on goal against an always-solid opponent, scoring a power-play goal and getting 31 saves from Seidl.

The game was Medford’s first since Dec. 2 and co-head coaches Jenna Wieting and Scott Brandner said the extended practice time had been getting old.

“It’s hard to know what we need to work on in practice without seeing the girls in games,” Wieting said. “So it was good to get back into a game situation.”

“The girls came out aggressive and played the way they should,” Brandner said of the Raiders’ strong first-period effort, even though it ended with a 3-1 deficit. “They made good decisions.”

The highlight of the period came at the 11:26 mark when the Raiders quickly took advantage of a tripping call on Eagle Madison Stebbeds. Just 31 seconds after she went to the box, Medford’s offensive pressure in front of the net resulted in Kelli Petrick scoring off a Sophia Brunner assist and tied the game at 1-1. It was Medford’s first goal of the season and took on special meaning. After the period, a new banner was unveiled near Medford’s bench honoring Petrick’s 20-year-old brother Kyle, a former Medford hockey player who died in an automobile accident in October.

“That first period was very good,” Wieting said. “It was awesome to see Kelli get a goal. It was our first goal of the season, her first high school goal. It was really good on her part getting that in there. It came on a power play too. We’re always working on that really hard. It’s good to see something come out of that work.”

The Eagles had scored first at 8:22 when Mallory Schmidt snuck a wrist shot, short side past Seidl’s glove hand. The goal was assisted by the Eagles’ standout senior defenseman Grace Wittkopf.

Stebbeds got her revenge at 15:34, tak- ing advantage of a tripping penalty on Medford to score the tiebreaking powerplay goal with assists from Julia Nesbitt and Schmidt. Wittkopf had a wide-open net on a rebound at the 16:07 mark to make it 3-1.

Northland Pines outshot 10-7 in the first period, which the coaches felt was a good sign for the Raiders at both ends of the ice.

“We were controlling the puck,” Wieting said. “We weren’t just chasing it the whole time or playing defense the whole time.”

“We’ve put a lot of time into doing breakout drills and it’s coming around,” Brandner said. “It’s not there yet. We had a lot of times where we just didn’t see it, but we will. Heads were going up and we started to see some things. There were no no-look passes, which is awesome. We’ve been preaching pretty hard on that.”

On the defensive end, Medford wound up allowing 38 shots on goal, 31 of which Seidl saved in her first high-school start between the pipes.

“We kept their shots lower than we have in the past,” Wieting said. “Eryka did good for just having a couple of days. She was pretty stellar. We just have to protect our goalie a little more no matter who is in the net.”

“We blocked some shots,” Brandner said. “That’s great. We weren’t doing that before, but now that’s coming around. We’re doing the right things. Tonight was the first night where you could tell it’s going in the right direction.”

Northland Pines got a five-on-three chance early in the second period and took advantage with a Stebbeds goal 3:39 in. Halle Kerner scored twice in a 29-second span to open up a 6-1 lead by the 7:41 mark of the period and Wittkopf closed the scoring with an unassisted goal early in the third.

“It seems like our freshman group is getting more into the groove,” Wieting said. “Those first couple of games were a shock to their system as far as pace of the game. Tonight was better. This was a good point to build from after not having a game for weeks. It was refreshing to get back out there.”