Pressure finally breaks down Baldwin-Woodville in second half of 5-1 victory

MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER

Silas Wipf and Zach Rudolph each scored twice and Naut van Meurs, an exchange student from the Netherlands, got the final goal in the Medford Raiders’ 5-1 season-opening soccer win over Baldwin- Woodville Tuesday at Raider Field. It took awhile for the goals to come, but throughout the first half it felt like it was only a matter of time as Medford dominated possession of the ball and held the Blackhawks without a shot in the first half.

Leading 1-0 at the break, the Raiders broke it open with a three-goal flurry over a nearly seven-minute span early in the second half.

“It’s a great start,” Medford head coach Nate Bilodeau said. “It’s always good to start the season out with a win and a big win. We played together so well. That was my message. Obviously we have areas to improve on, but I’m beyond happy with how we played as a team. I know there was one and maybe even two goals where it came from the defense, all the way through the mid and all the way to Zach or Silas and we scored. A great combination of team play to score goal. That’s what we want. That’s what we coach.”

The Raiders’ five goals were assisted by five different players, demonstrating Bilodeau’s point about the team play.

The Raiders’ offensive pressure resulted in five corner kicks in the first 20 minutes, Blackhawk goalie Luke Stuedemann had to make a save on a strong direct kick by Aaron Schield from 50 yards out at the 10:50 mark and Rudolph took a pass from Adyn Gripentrog and made a nice move before pulling a shot wide left at the 21:45 mark.

Wipf broke the tie at 24:20. The play started with a push from the left side by Gripentrog. The Raiders kept the Blackhawks from clearing it out of trouble, the ball was centered and found its way to Rudolph, who pushed it ahead to Wipf at point-blank range and he didn’t miss.

Gripentrog got the assist on Wipf’s second goal, which came 6:06 into the second half, centering a ball to Wipf who controlled the pass with his first touch, took one dribble and then hammered a left-to-right shot that Stuedemann had no shot to stop. Moments later at 47:59, a scoring sequence started with a steal along the right sideline by Nick Kowalski. The ball found its way to Yonatan “Jimmy” Murillo, who pushed a pass straight through the middle to Rudolph, who snuck his shot inside the left post for a 3-0 lead.

Baldwin-Woodville got a break at 49:32 as a direct kick deflected off Caden Tessmann’s head for an own goal that put the Blackhawks on the board, but the Raiders got that one right back at 53:01 when Wipf sent a pretty pass about 25 yards across the field and hit Rudolph in stride for a one-on-one opportunity with Stuedemann that he didn’t miss.

“It’s the fundamentals that we hammer on every single practice, the first touch, the two-touch passing, the communication,” Bilodeau said. “It’s the fundamentals that are going to set us apart there’s no doubt. They checked the box on all the fundamentals, they worked well as a team and got some really good team goals.”

The goal by van Meurs came with 2:21 left in the game and came off a long throw-in by Vincent Seidel. He bounced a shot off Stuedemann and the right post and found its way in.

“Naut has been a very pleasant surprise addition to our team,” Bilodeau said. “He’s going to fit right in with his personality. He’s a great kid; he’s a great player. It’s just a matter now of where do we go with him. The nice thing about Naut is he was born with a soccer ball in his hands and soccer players know how to play soccer. He’s versatile, he can play just about anywhere.”

Medford’s ability to possess the ball led to a quiet night for goalie Jake Dassow, though he did get one of his six saves on an all-out dive to his right late in the game.

Medford continues its six-game season- opening homestand tonight, Thursday, by hosting Shawano at 7 p.m. New London and New Richmond are in town Saturday for a triangular that starts at 10 a.m. The Raiders host GNC contenders Rhinelander and Lakeland Tuesday and Thursday nights of next week.