Raiders run over Lakeland again, shut down T-Birds’ offense
MEDFORD 38, LAKELAND 14
Exactly 52 weeks after Aiden Gardner broke Medford’s single-game rushing record at Lakeland with 352 yards, the Raiders were at it again Friday, shredding the Thunderbirds’ defense for 457 rushing yards and nearly 576 yards overall in a 38-14 Great Northern Conference victory in Minocqua.
Tukker Schreiner led the offensive attack, rushing for a career-high 217 yards and three touchdowns while Peyton Gilles added 125 more yards and a score behind an offensive line that got a strong push all night long.
The only downside was the Raiders lost three fumbles in the game and they were hurt at times by penalties for the second straight week. But four touchdowns on their first four possessions put the Raiders in a position where the mistakes, at least for this week, didn’t hurt them much.
“I think as a whole offensively yardage-wise very good. That’s a lot of yards in a high school game,” head coach Ted Wilson said. “All of that is great, but we had three turnovers, all in bad spots. That’s three opportunities to score more points and to put the game out of reach. While we won by 24, which is great, we have to take care of the ball because against good teams, those are things that can’t happen. We definitely have to clean up some of our ball security.”
“We ran it down their throat,” Schreiner said. “I mean they couldn’t really stop us except for the fumbles that we had. Those are mistakes. It’s wet out, but we can’t make that a problem. It happens. Just have to keep working on it.”
Defensively, the Raiders were solid as well. Lakeland’s only points came on an 81-yard first-quarter kickoff return by Max Masayesva and on a very short 11yard drive after a Medford fumble. The T-Birds still had to make a fourth-down conversion to get to the end zone.
The win put Medford 2-0 in the GNC and 3-1 overall, while Lakeland fell to 0-2, 0-4.
With a steady rain falling at game time, Medford nearly lost a fumble on the opening kickoff, but Peyton Gilles pounced on the ball at the 34-yard line after it got away from Tucker Kraemer and the Raiders turned it into an 11-play, 66yard scoring drive. Schreiner’s 19-yard run set up Kraemer’s 12-yard touchdown where he avoided an early tackle and beat the pursuit to the left pylon for a 6-0 lead just 3:38 in.
Masayesva got those points back in a hurry, fielding the ensuing kickoff near the right sideline at the 19, getting through a crease and then avoiding one tackle near midfield on his way to the end zone. Maccoy Holmquist kicked the extra point to give Lakeland its only lead of the game at 7-6.
“It’s real easy to get down after something like that but you just have to trust that you’ll come back and score,” Raider senior Charlie Kleist said.
That’s just what Medford did. Sprung by a Logan Kawa block, Kraemer returned the kickoff 62 yards to Lakeland’s 30 and scored six plays later on Schreiner’s 3-yard run up the middle to go up 12-7.
Lakeland threatened with its lone extended drive of the night that fizzled when Kleist forced Lakeland’s Rocky Wagoner to fumble and it was recovered by defensive end Landen Viergutz at Medford’s 21.
That was the start of a big night for Kleist, who filled his run gaps consistently and made numerous tackles on Wagoner, who finished with a hard-earned 88 yards on 28 carries.
“We knew he was a really good running back before the game started,” Kleist said. “We knew we had to keep him contained and don’t let him break one because then they’ll get confident and get rolling. We had to shut it down when he starts.
“The first few weeks I felt like I was underperforming quite a bit, so I wanted to come out here and make a statement on defense,” he added. “I was just trusting that the defensive ends would force the running back back inward and letting me make the tackle. And the linebackers were eating up blocks.”
“He’s one of our better run fitters and better tacklers, so putting him to the strong side makes sense and he made a lot of plays,” Wilson said.
Wilson said another key to the defensive success Friday was the ability of linebackers Alex Dittrich and Logan Kawa to make some corrections following Lakeland’s opening drive.
“(Dittrich) has literally only been playing linebacker for not even a full year,” Wilson said. “He’s been a defensive end most of his high school career and Logan Kawa is still only a junior and he only probably played three games last year also. He’s only about seven games into it also. So you have two kids that are still pretty young at linebacker and so them getting experience is an important thing. And that goes along with the rest of them. The only kids that came back defensively were Charlie Kleist, Max Dietzman played quite a bit on the defensive line and Tucker Kraemer at corner. We’re only four games in. For them to see things and learn is good. The positive is they see it, they learn from it and they correct it. That going forward is good for us.”
Medford quickly turned that turnover into points. Five plays into the drive, on the first play of the second quarter, Schreiner avoided some congestion in the backfield, cut back through the middle and barely outran Lakeland’s Talon Halin to the right pylon for a 54yard score that widened Medford’s lead to 18-7.
A 78-yard Medford drive moments later ended with a 51-yard run by Schreiner, who had nothing to stop him after he got through a big hole at the line of scrimmage. That made it 24-7 with 8:21 still left in the opening half.
“The first one there was a missed block and I don’t even know how I stood on my feet, but I cut back in and it was open,” Schreiner said. “I’m a big boy. It’s tiring running that far but I got in by a little bit thankfully. The second one, I can’t thank the line enough. They blocked perfectly, so did Braxton Weissmiller. He blocked it perfect. I cut it back in and it was wide open.” Medford got another stop and appeared to be on the verge of delivering another big punch when quarterback Logan Baumgartner hit Kraemer for a 61yard completion. However, Lakeland was able to strip the ball at the end of the play and recover at the 11yard line. The T-Birds reversed field position but didn’t score on their possession, thanks to a Baumgartner interception, but Halin recovered a fumble on Medford’s next offensive play at the Raiders’ 11 and the T-Birds turned it into Wagoner’s 1-yard score that cut the lead to 24-14 with 22 seconds left in the half.
Baumgartner’s second interception of the game quickly ended Lakeland’s first drive of the second half and the Raiders wasted no time putting the game away. Gilles got through a big hole on the right side for a 30yard touchdown that made it 30-14. Cole Dassow snagged a deflected interception just before the ball hit the turf at Lakeland’s 42 and the Raiders went for the home run on first down and got it with Baumgartner perfectly hitting Ty Metz along the left sideline at the goal line. Schreiner finally ended Medford’s string of five unsuccessful two-point tries by running this one for the final points of the night with 7:15 to go in the third.
Medford collected its last 93 rushing yards on its final drive while running the last 4:13 off the clock in the fourth quarter.
Baumgartner was three of six through the air for 119 yards, adding a completion of 16 yards to Dassow. He ran for 40 yards on six carries as did Weissmiller. Kraemer had 30 yards on five carries.
Lakeland finished with just 142 total yards, 92 on the ground and 50 through the air.
The Raiders host Ashland tonight, Thursday, in a game moved up a day due to a shortage of officiating crews for Friday. The GNC’s Rhinelander at Antigo game is also tonight. The Oredockers were blitzed 55-14 by GNC co-leader Mosinee on Friday and come in at 1-1 in league play and 1-3 overall.
“Anybody can beat anybody in this conference,” Wilson said. “We definitely have to be prepared and ready to go. We’re going to get people’s best every week.”
Medford’s Ty Metz sacks Lakeland quarterback Brayden Wiczek for an 8-yard loss early in the fourth quarter of Friday’s win.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
Medford’s Aiden Denzer inches away from Rhinelander’s Camilla Gruett on her way to winning the 500-yard freestyle during the Raiders’ 110-60 loss to the Hodags on Thursday.JEREMY MAYO/NORTHWOODS RIVER NEWS
