sow to the ball and ….

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.