Hodags beaten in PKs again; Raiders tested by Tigers, Hawks
MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER
The stakes weren’t quite as high as they were last October in WIAA Division 3 tournament play, but there was a very familiar feeling Tuesday between the boys soccer teams from Rhinelander and Medford in the Great Northern Conference opener.
Just like that memorable regional semifinal last fall, the teams battled to a defensive-minded 1-1 tie that went to a penalty-kick shootout. And, the result was the same with Medford winning the shootout, this time 6-5 in seven rounds.
Tuesday’s shootout win merely gave Medford two points for the conference standings, instead of one. While the shootout win was a cause for celebration, the Raiders would’ve preferred to have earned the full three points for a win in regulation.
“We would’ve liked to have had a cleaner game and just win in regulation,” senior goal keeper Jake Dassow said after recording the clinching save on Hodag Will Quinn that iced the shootout win. “I think we could’ve played way better than we did. We like to go down to teams’ levels sometimes.”
“Rhinelander is that team that is always very competitive,” Medford head coach Nathan Bilodeau said. “We know how they play so we should be able to beat them, but we always seem to find a way to keep it too close. Then we get down to things like this where it’s literally a nail-biter. So my message to the boys was to celebrate the win, this was great. It’s a great win, starting off conference play with a victory. But let’s focus on areas of improvement. It’s the whole happy but not satisfied idea.”
Medford had its chances to put the game away in regulation and that was the team’s biggest frustration in Tuesday’s result. The first half was physical and dominated by defense. Medford had one great chance to score 12:25 in. After a Hodag foul just outside the 18-yard goalie box, Naut van Meurs took a direct kick that banged off the right post. Raider Silas Wipf got a foot on the ball on the rebound and seemingly had a goal, but Hodag keeper Cooper Radke somehow got to it just before it crossed the line. Defenders Vince Seidl and Mason Gripentrog broke up Hodag runs at Dassow in the half. The Raiders got shots on goal from Adyn Gripentrog, Zach Rudolph and Wipf in the half that Radke saved.
The game opened up, however, in the second half for Medford who put consistent pressure on Rhinelander’s defense in the first 25 minutes. The first major push came seven minutes into the 40-minute half and resulted in Medford’s goal.
Aaron Schield carried the ball in from the left wing and centered a pass that went off Radke’s hands right to Wipf, whose shot hit the crossbar, but Rudolph was right there to head in the rebound.
The Raiders possessed the ball and controlled the game for a long stretch, but the game turned in the last 15 minutes as the Hodags got shots on goal from Matthew King and Quinn and then got a foul called on Medford’s Yonatan “Jimmy” Murillo Aguirre that resulted in a yellow card and a direct kick 31 yards from the goal on the right side. The Raiders were caught out of position and Hodag Kyle Wiese knocked in the shot to tie the game up with 12:53 left in regulation.
As the shootout began, Medford was down one of its top snipers, in Wipf, who left the game with a leg injury with nine minutes left. Bilodeau said that changed the original five-man lineup for the shootout.
Aaron Schield led off for Medford by burying his high shot, but Rhinelander’s Braden Mork went right and connected. Rudolph pushed his shot inside the left post in round two but was answered by Rhinelander’s Charlie Heck, who just got his shot between the hands of a diving Dassow and the left post.
Seidel snuck his shot under the crossbar to start the third round. Dassow got his hands on another ball, but Shane Petrick put enough on it to get it past Dassow. Murillo Aguirre then sent a shot high, giving Rhinelander a window to win it. Garret Younker hit the upper left corner to put the Hodags up 4-3. But, van Meurs went left and hit a must-have shot and Dassow kept the shootout going by stoning Neil Weigel.
Afterwards, Dassow said he’s gained plenty of confidence having gone through several shootouts in varsity and club play.
“I got like three shots or so where I got my fingertips on them,” he said. “I was pretty mad on a couple of them.”
With the shootout now into sudden victory, defenseman Nick Kowalski buried his shot inside the right post, but he was answered by Wiese, who went left with his shot. Another defenseman, Mason Gripentrog scored going to the right side, Dassow then got Quinn’s shot directed toward the upper left corner to end it.
“I just went up there, I normally go to the right, so I went right and scored,” Gripentrog said of his kick, adding that he never expected the game might come down to him.
“You can usually see when they’re about to kick which way they’re going,” Dassow said of the save. “I just guessed right.”
“Confidence is key to winning a shoot- out,” Bilodeau said. “Naut being his first time on the team, taking a penalty shot and being the last, I mean you have to make it, and he did. He came through for us. Then guys like Mason stepping up, Vince, Nick Kowalski, we had defenders taking penalty kicks and that’s just a confidence thing. Really proud of how those guys finished. Big shoutout to Jake for phenomenal goal tending on the penalty kicks. He had his hands on a couple of them and saved the ones that mattered the most.”
This was just the first half of a big week to start GNC play. The Raiders host defending GNC and WIAA Division 3 regional champion Lakeland tonight, Thursday, at 7 p.m. in the final game of Medford’s six-game homestand to start the fall.
The Raiders will be at Marshfield Tuesday at 7 p.m. and Mosinee at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 8.
“Lakeland is going to be a tougher team, more possessive,” Gripentrog said.
“We’re just trying to go 2-0 this week,” Dassow said.
1-1 on Saturday
The Raiders went 1-1 in the Medford Triangular Saturday, blowing out New London 9-0 in a shortened finale and falling 2-1 in a great test with New Richmond in the opener.
The Tigers, a perennial Division 2 contender out of the Big Rivers Conference, got two outstanding plays that resulted in first-half goals. That held up the rest of the way against the Raiders, who only got off 10 shots in the game, four of which were on goal.
“We played well,” Bilodeau said. “New Richmond has a good team. It was pretty physical.”
The Tigers got their first goal at 20:25 with a perfect head shot off a corner kick by Noah Herron. Charlie Gess got the goal that wound up being the game winner at 36:50. The play started with a long punt from goalie Zaylin Sweet that Gess got control of at midfield. He tapped it to Andrew Blattner who sent it toward the left side of the net and Gess just beat Das- sow to the ball and punched it in from a tough angle.
The Raiders cut the deficit in half just 4:09 into the second half. Wipf got knocked to the ground in the goalie box as the teams battled for control of the ball after a Schield corner kick. Rudolph went to the left post with his penalty kick and buried it. Medford survived a New Richmond penalty kick that Riley Heiberg sent wide with eight minutes left. Medford had one good chance to tie it after that, but Sweet got to a high bouncing pass through the middle by van Meurs just before Rudolph did with 3:30 to go.
New Richmond rolled past New London 6-0 in game two of the day and improved to 5-0 in the season’s first week by beating Marshfield 7-0 on Monday.
Rested up after the midday break, Medford destroyed New London by scoring nine times in 40 minutes. The teams mutually agreed to end the game at halftime.
Rudolph, Schield and van Meurs both scored twice for Medford, while Wipf and Dominic Fennell added one goal apiece. An own goal added to the Bulldogs’ woes.
Wipf assisted on the first goal by Rudolph at 2:01, quickly reacting to a handball by the goalie and pushing an indirect kick to Rudolph. Wipf buried a 25-yard shot at 4:37, Schield curled in a corner kick at 5:58 and he scored on a 15-yard laser at 14:51 after getting a cross-field pass from Kowalski. Rudolph scored on a steal and breakaway just 14 seconds later for a 5-0 lead.
After the own goal at 28:40, van Meurs scored off a Rudolph assist at 34:59, Fennell got his first goal of the season at 36:12, taking a pass from Rudolph and taking one dribble before shooting. The last goal by van Meurs came with three second left in the half.
Medford 4, Shawano 0
On Thursday, the Raiders took down a solid squad from Shawano, using two Wipf goals to break a scoreless secondhalf tie and pull away for an impressive 4-0 victory.
Rudolph and Schield added goals in the second-half flurry. Eight of Medford’s nine goals came in the second halves of their opening wins over Shawano and Baldwin-Woodville.
“I think everybody was coming into the second half hungry, everybody wanted to score,” Wipf said. “We knew we didn’t have the greatest first half, so we just kind of turned it on in the second half and they weren’t ready for it. After the first goal went in, that was just a lot of momentum we created and we scored three more.”
“We knew this would be a tougher opponent for us so it was a matter of taking what we learned from (the Aug. 23) game, improving on that and then putting it into play,” Bilodeau said. “I think we did that really well in the first half and we did it even better in the second half. We talked at halftime, we made changes and they implemented them and we put four goals in in 40 minutes.”
Wipf’s first goal at 47:39 was the result of solid team play on the offensive half of the pitch. It started with Murillo Aguirre freeing the ball from a Hawk and pushing it to Wipf. The Raiders passed the ball through the middle of the field, then van Meurs tracked down a deflected ball in the left corner, tapped it to Seidel, who passed it to Rudolph, who dropped it to a wide-open Wipf right at the boundary of the 18-yard goal box. His line drive easily got inside the right post.
“It was beautiful passing by the boys,” Wipf said. “The keeper came out and a couple of defenders got caught out as well. Zach just laid it off to me and then it was like an open goal. I just passed it into the net. It was good though, a beautiful build up to it.”
At 56:49, van Meurs controlled the ball in the middle of the field, passed to Schield, who tapped it back to Wipf, who made one quick move past a defender and buried his kick from 30 yards out.
“I got the ball around the 18, and then I just rolled it out on my feet and just hit with power and pace,” Wipf said. “I put it kind of low because I knew the keeper was tall and it’d be hard for him to get down. The pace is what did it because it went through his hands.
“That’s what we’ve been working on,” Wipf added. “Coach has been telling us take shots outside of the 18 because we need to make more opportunities and that’s what we did this time. Sure enough, three of our goals were outside the 18.”
The third goal at 68:12 was the result of good work from right wing Adyn Gripentrog, who made a run toward the corner, collected a pass from Murillo Aguirre and after spinning away from a defender, laid a perfect pass to Rudolph for an easy tap-in.
“With technical ability, Adyn Gripentrog has to be one of the best players on our team,” Bilodeau said. “His ability to see, play the ball, take a ball out of the air and just put it right on his foot is really good.”
Schield put the final nail in Shawano’s coffin at 75:43, getting the ball from Michael Meyer with all kinds of space and time to wind up and drill a low shot from 29 yards out.
“We’ve tried to ingrain into our players, shoot the ball more, shoot the ball more and we did tonight,” Bilodeau said. “We scored three of our four goals from outside the box.”
The Raiders defense kept a clean sheet, allowing just eight shots on goal, all of which were saved by Dassow.
Medford goal keeper Jake Dassow makes the clinching save on a shot by Rhinelander’s Will Quinn that ends a penalty kick shootout between the teams in the seventh round Tuesday night. The Raiders won the shootout 6-5 at the end of a 1-1 tie.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
Naut van Meurs passes with his head during Saturday’s win over New London.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
