Raiders survive wild one with Tigers, win GNC opener by 10

MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL

Onalaska hangs on in Saturday showdown

Things looked bleak midway through the first half Tuesday, but the Medford Raiders cut a 17-point deficit to five by halftime, settled in offensively in the second half and made just enough plays late to outscore host New Richmond 74-73 in a non-conference thriller.

Logan Baumgartner capped a 35-point, 14-rebound outing by splitting two Tiger defenders in the lane and hitting the go-ahead basket with 40 seconds left, breaking a 70-70 tie. Single free throws by Tanner Hraby and Charlie Kleist put the Raiders up by four, before New Richmond’s Brady Barlow-Sager hit his seventh 3-pointer of the game with 5.7 seconds left to make it a one-point game. After a timeout, New Richmond stole Medford’s inbound pass and gave Barlow-Sager a shot to win it, but his 3-point attempt from the right wing at the buzzer came up short.

The win puts Medford at 2-2 overall after a tough four-game stretch to open the season. The Tigers are 0-2, having also lost by six at River Falls on Friday.

“We just started fighting our way back,” Brown said of overcoming the 2912 deficit and New Richmond’s hot streak to start the game. “We like to play fast, but they almost got us to play at a frenetic pace in the first half. At halftime, we just said that we needed to slow down and run our offense. We still wanted to look for opportunities in transition, but we needed to settle into our offense. They were so focused on defending our screens, we thought we could get some slips and cuts.”

New Richmond hit 14 of 36 shots from 3-point range, including eight of 17 in the first half. Barlow-Sager, who finished with 27 points, made four in the opening 29-12 run, RJ Amundson and Reis Hidde each added one and Jackson Gatzke made three free throws after getting fouled on a 3-point try.

“They were hot obviously,” Brown said. “I felt like we contested well. They hit a couple of deep ones. The ones that really hurt us were the ones that came off of offensive rebounds.”

Baumgartner hit a couple of 3s to start Medford’s comeback and scores late in the half by Charlie Kleist and Tanner Hraby got the Raiders right back in it by halftime at 41-36.

An 8-0 run early in the second half that included an inside score by Baumgartner, a Kleist steal and score, another Kleist score off a Hraby assist and two free throws by Baumgartner gave the Raiders their first lead since 4-0 at 5048 with 11:23 left. From there, the game went back and forth.

The Tigers surged ahead 60-54, but the Raiders quickly reeled them back in with 3s from Hraby and Baumgartner and free throws by Ty Metz, Baumgartner as well as Hraby following an untimely technical foul on New Richmond’s bench put Medford up 64-60 with 4:21 left.

Hraby had 22 points while making just one 3-point shot. He hit seven of eight free throws, with his miss being his first of the year after 23 makes. He cut and scored off a Charlie Gierl assist for a 66-61 lead, but New Richmond was soon right back within 68-67 following 3s from Gatzke and Barlow-Sager. Hidde’s triple tied the game at 70 with 1:05 left, but Baumgartner answered on Medford’s ensuing “Logan made some huge plays,” Brown said. “He had 35 and 14 and had some big rebounds and obviously hit some big shots for us. Tanner did a lot of great things for us. Maybe he didn’t have a great shooting night, but he really handled the ball and was confident against their pressure and attacked it.”

Kleist finished with 12 points and eight rebounds and became a focal point of the half-court offense. He also had five steals. Medford’s 38-24 advantage in points in the paint and its 15-of-25 free throw shooting were key. New Richmond made just five of 10 free throws.

Metz scored five points and had five boards before fouling out. Zach Rudolph had four assists and two rebounds. Gierl had two assists. Hraby had four rebounds, two assists and two steals. New Richmond outrebounded Medford 47-34.

Medford is back at Raider Hall Friday, hosting Antigo in Great Northern Conference play. The Raiders have a nonconference game at Merrill Tuesday and return to Lincoln County to face Tomahawk on Dec. 16.

Onalaska 78, Medford 69

Medford got big offensive nights from Baumgartner and Kleist, but the Raiders couldn’t buy a bucket from 3-point range and Onalaska’s size and ability to score in transition was enough for the host Hilltoppers to win Saturday’s battle between state-ranked teams 78-69.

Onalaska’s newest addition, 6-4 junior guard Evan Anderson made nine of 15 shots and all 10 of his free throws to lead all scorers with 29 points. Anderson played at Black River Falls in his first two years. TJ Stuttley, a 6-5 sophomore guard, added 15 points mostly at the rim for the third-ranked Hilltoppers in their first game of the season.

Medford was ranked 10th in Division 2 in the week-one WisSports.net state coaches poll. The Raiders stayed with the Hilltoppers most of the way, but the 3-point shooting, typically a big part of their game, was not there on the second of back-to-back game nights as they made just four of 28 attempts. That dropped the Raiders to 40% overall from the field (26 of 65), while Onalaska shot 50% overall (29 of 58) despite being just three of 14 from long range.

The Hilltoppers scored 20 points off 15 Medford turnovers and got 48 of their points in the paint. Medford hung right with the Hilltoppers on the boards, earning a 38-35 overall advantage.

“You like to see the effort, but we’re at the point where we’re ready to win one of these games against top competi-tion,” Brown said. “We lost by nine, got within six three times in the last couple of minutes. We were four of 28 on 3s and they weren’t bad 3s. We got good looks in transition and had wide-open shots out of offense from good shooters. Fourteen percent against any team isn’t usually going to cut it and especially not against the number-three team in the state. If we make eight, we probably win the game and that’s very realistic for us.”

Kleist had, by far, his best of game of Medford’s three-game first week with 22 points on 10-of-14 shooting. Baumgartner got hit with two early fouls, but played around them and finished with 24 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists.

The first of Baumgartner’s two 3s on the night gave Medford a quick 7-2 lead and a Metz hoop made it 9-4 but the Raiders’ lead was short-lived. After Baumgartner was called for an offensive foul for his second personal foul just 2:55 into the game, the Hilltoppers went on a quick run that put them in front for good. Anderson scored inside and nailed a 3 to tie it. Isaac Skemp scored in transition, but Medford’s Charlie Gierl sank a triple to put the Raiders ahead one last time at 12-11. Five points by Kleist tied it at 17-17, but Onalaska charged ahead with a 12-2 run. The Raiders got the deficit down to 31-28. Metz scored off Baumgartner’s save on the baseline. Baumgartner scored and was fouled. He missed the free throw, but Gierl rebounded it and kicked it out to Baumgartner for 3. Onalaska countered with five points and got a crucial 3-pointer from Skemp with two seconds left to open up a 40-32 halftime lead.

The Hilltoppers’ lead hit 14 at 62-48 on another Skemp triple,but the Raiders chipped away and made a game of it late. A Metz rebound led to Kleist’s 3 and a 64-57 score. Kleist banked in a runner to get the lead to six at 65-59, but Metz fouled out on a tough call with 4:30 left. The lead went back to nine shortly after that and six was the closest Medford got at 70-64 following a three-point play by Baumgartner with 4:02 left and 72-66 on two Baumgartner free throws with 1:10 to go.

Hraby and Metz scored eight points apiece. Metz had 12 rebounds and two assists. Hraby had six rebounds and two assists. Gierl had five points and two steals in 19 quality minutes. Zach Rudolph had a bucket and five rebounds.

Medford 82, Lakeland 72

In Friday’s Great Northern Conference opener at Raider Hall, Hraby scored all of his game-high 23 points in the second half to lead Medford to a hard-fought 82-72 win over the Lakeland Thunderbirds.

Hraby was five of eight from 3-point range in the second half to help Medford turn a 39-37 deficit early in the half into a 15-point lead with five minutes left.

Lakeland, however, didn’t quit and hit five late 3s to get within 74-69 with just over 2:30 to play, but Medford hit six of eight free throws down the stretch and got a mid-range bucket from Baumgartner, who scored 21 points, with 1:10 left to seal the deal.

While happy with the win, Brown said the team’s defensive performance needed work after allowing 70-plus points to a second straight opponent to start the season.

“They shot it really well and they had a good game plan,” Brown said of the TBirds, who shot 51.8% from the field overall, including 12 of 26 from the 3-point line. “Hopefully we can do a better job executing on the defensive end. Seventytwo points is hard to swallow. It’s just a lack of doing the little things, like closing out. We didn’t expend a lot of energy trying to pressure them. Give them credit; we turned them over a little bit in the first half, but overall they did a good job of taking care the ball and they got us a couple of times on some back cuts.”

It was a back-and-forth game for the first 20 minutes. Medford opened up an early 13-5 lead behind eight quick points from Baumgartner and a Gierl 3. Lakeland went on a 17-5 surge to go up 22-18 and then answered a Baumgartner 3 with a Layton Larsen triple to lead 25-21. The Raiders ended the half with a 10-3 spurt to lead 37-32 at halftime, highlighted by two offensive putbacks by Metz, a Nick Steliga steal and score and a Gierl score off a Steliga assist following a Lakeland turnover.

The T-Birds got the first seven points of the second half very quickly, but Hraby silenced them by hitting back-to-back 3s from the same spot on the right wing. His third 3 put Medford up 4841, his fourth opened up a 10-point lead at 53-43 and his fifth made it 58-46 with 10 minutes to go. Baumgartner scored on a nice post move, Metz scored off a Baumgartner assist in transition, Hraby scored on a back cut and Baumgartner assist and Kleist got a three-point play off a Baumgartner assist to open up a 68-53 lead with 5:55 left. It was 70-55 when Lakeland made its late run behind three 3s from Larsen and one each from Carter Quade and Ashton Anderson.

While it may have looked like a concerted effort to get Hraby going in the second half, Brown said his open looks were a result of well-run offense and the junior did a good job of knocking them down.

‘More of the effort was let’s just be patient in our offense and try to break down the defense,” Brown said. “When we start to think about what we’re doing out there and who we’re trying to get open and we move the ball three or four times, we’re going to get guys wide open.”

Hraby hit seven of 14 shots from the field overall and added four rebounds, two assists and a steal. Baumgartner had six rebounds, five assists and two steals. Metz was a key figure as well with a 12-point, 10-rebound double-double that included two assists. Kleist had nine points and three assists. Rudolph scored five points and had seven rebounds and three assists. Not to be overlooked were the six points apiece Gierl and Steliga provided off the bench.

“There were some big points in the first half from Charlie Gierl and Nick Steliga,” Brown said.

Brayden Wiczek led Lakeland with 16 points. Larsen hit five of seven 3s to score 15 points, while Will Fortier added 15 points to go with seven rebounds and three assists.

Medford shot a solid 47.4% from the field, including 18 of 28 on two-point shots. The Raiders also outrebounded Lakeland 34-26, an improvement from the 71-69 loss to Chippewa Falls on Nov. 29.

“We were probably better on weakside rebounding and just going to get them,” Brown said. “So that was something we really emphasized. But we also really emphasize closeouts and I didn’t think we were great on that. We gave up middle a lot off of our closeouts. We were slow on our rotations on the bottom. They did a couple of things against us to see how we’d rotate and that’s what killed us on the weak side.

“We just have to get to the point where those last five minutes is where it’s winning time,” he added. “That’s what we’ve traditionally been able to do is really just shut teams down. We haven’t done that in the first two games, so we’ll keep working on it.”