Raiders’ girls hockey season ends with first-period blast from the Hurricanes

WIAA GIRLS HOCKEY

The Medford Raiders’ improved girls hockey season came to a crashing halt Thursday with a 14-0 loss to the secondseeded Hayward Co-op in a WIAA regional final.

The Hurricanes, who have had one of the top programs in northern Wisconsin in recent years pounced on the young Raiders, many of whom were playing in their first post-season contest, by scoring eight first-period goals to quickly put this one away and assure themselves of a spot in a sectional semifinal with third-seeded Superior-Northwestern, who came from behind to beat the sixth-seeded Northern Edge Co-op 6-4 Thursday.

That sectional semifinal was postponed a day to Wednesday by Tuesday’s winter storm.

Hayward (15-9) outshot the Raiders 37-6 with goalie Greta Woelber getting the relatively easy shutout win.

The game was the second of a playoff doubleheader held at Hayward’s arena Thursday. The teams waited out a lengthy boys game that went into double overtime before Hayward finally beat Marshfield 4-3. After the wait, the Raiders came out flat and the Hurricanes gladly took advantage.

Seven different players scored goals for Hayward in the opening period. Makaela Reinke was the only player with two. She got hers back-to-back at 4:37 and 5:24 to make it 6-0. Summer Hammann got the first one 30 seconds in, Gillian Johnson got one a minute later, Hailey Olby made it 3-0 eight seconds after that the team’s leading scorer in the regular season, Riley Sprenger, made it 4-0 just 2:16 in.

Hayward added three goals in each of the next two periods.

Reinke finished with a hat trick. Johnson had two goals and three assists. Lily Eytcheson had a goal and four assists.

Medford goalie Alyssa Brandner finished her first year between the pipes with 23 saves on 37 shots faced. Hayward had a 29-3 edge in shots through the first two periods.

Neither team was successful on one power play.

The Raiders finished the year at 4-16 and could bring almost its entire roster next season. They will say goodbye to leading scorer Kyla Kennedy, who finished the year with seven goals and six assists and was a major contributor to the program from day one as a freshman.

But with a roster that consisted of 10 freshmen, two sophomores and four three-year juniors, co-head coaches Scott Brandner and Jenna Wieting are expecting the team to keep improving in 2022-23.