football. Gilman’s Bryson Keepers, most ….

football. Gilman’s Bryson Keepers, most would agree was the game’s most valuable player as the North beat the South 23-6. Keepers was credited with eight total tackles, including seven solo stops and 5.5 tackles for losses, four of which were quarterback sacks. He forced two fumbles, one of which was a strip-sack at the goal line for a fourth-quarter touchdown. Julian Krizan had a big night too with five tackles, including three solos and two tackles for loss. Tom Tallier was an assistant on the North’s coaching staff.

  Medford’s golf team had a solid second-place showing in the Great Northern Conference in the spring and topped it off by winning the WIAA Division 2 regional championship in Tomahawk on May 24. The team posted a score of 321 and beat runner-up Hayward by 12 shots. Unfortunately, the Raiders came up three shots shy of going to state a week later at Antigo.

  Aiden Denzer capped a solid girls swim career with Medford and sophomore Sydney Sperl built momentum for the future with their big finishes to the fall season in November. In a rarity for Medford, both qualified for the WIAA Division 2 state meet in one event, the 200-yard individual medley. Sperl finished 13th in a personal-best 2:19.16, while Denzer was 15th. Denzer then set a personal-best time of 1:02.56 in her final race, the 100-yard backstroke.

  Rhinelander’s girls soccer team beat Medford 9-1 on April 14. What’s significant about that? Nothing, except for the game being played in snow and 40 mph wins at Raider Field. Those who were there will never forget it.

  Oct. 22 was a good day as Medford’s girls cross country team won its sectional championship and Tanner Hraby qualified for state individually at Black River Falls, Prentice-Rib Lake’s Kylie Orysen qualified for the Division 3 state meet out of the Phillips sectional and Medford’s boys soccer team won the Division 3 regional title with a dominant 4-0 win over Mosinee.

That led to the Raiders’ sectional semifinal shootout with Rhinelander after a 2-2 double-overtime tie. The Hodags crushed Medford’s state dreams by winning the penalty-kick shootout 4-2.

At Black River Falls, I got to the sectional early and took a picture of the golf course and posted it on Twitter trying to portray what a beautiful fall day it was. Turns out, that was my last normal day for some time. The following morning I woke up with a slight, but different-feeling and persistent headache that lasted into mid-week. While pushing through a demanding work week, by Tuesday night it was becoming very apparent my vision was getting blurry. By Thursday, I was seeing double. I still have no idea how I covered that boys soccer sectional semifinal because I was seeing about 40 guys on the field.

The following afternoon, instead of traveling to Onalaska for Medford’s WIAA Division 3 Level 2 football game or getting ready for state cross country the next day, I was in the emergency room with a right eye that was starting to feel stuck in cement and wanting to close while awaiting a CT scan. That scan and a brain MRI four days later came back normal, thankfully, but that was followed by a nearly two-week wait to get in to a specialist to figure out what was wrong.

That diagnosis came Nov. 10 as damage to the third cranial nerve. The good news was, the nerve typically heals. The bad news, there’s no telling how long it will take. One to three months is the usual prognosis. So much for deer hunting this year.

A few weeks and many pirate jokes later, the right eye started moving again on Dec. 1, greatly reducing the double vision. On Dec. 9, the eyes seemed to become teammates again, providing a clearer picture.

Living with one eye is no picnic. Much respect to people around the world who do it. You’d be amazed how everything a human does in waking hours is meant to be done with two eyes.

The right eye isn’t all the way back yet, but it is, I’d say about 85-90%. It’s good to feel like a normal person again. A big thank you to all of my family members who were my taxi drivers in that time.

Hopefully the range of motion comes all the way back. I’m looking forward to getting back out and about and catching up with more winter sports teams as we flip the calendar to 2023.

Matt Frey is the Sports Editor at The Star

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