Third straight regional title clinched with rewarding win

WIAA DIV. 2: MEDFORD 53, RICE LAKE 42

For the past few years, it’s seemed any time a Medford team wanted to make a WIAA tournament run, Rice Lake was there to end that run.

On Saturday, that road block was finally smashed.

It wasn’t easy, but this time the topseeded Raiders were the ones who kept their composure when things got tough in the second half and earned a hardfought 53-42 win over the fifth-seeded Warriors to keep the dream of a boys basketball state berth alive in Saturday’s WIAA Division 2 regional final.

The Raiders expected a slower-paced defensive grinder from the Warriors and that’s what they got. They did enough defensively to slow down Rice Lake’s standout brothers Tyler and Zach Orr and get some big stops late. Offensively, patience was required, but the Raiders hit 48.3% of the shots from the field they did get and outscored Rice Lake by 13 at the free throw line.

“It’s going to be a battle,” Medford’s Logan Baumgartner said after leading all scorers in the game with 18 points. “They play a methodical game. They’re going to dribble it up the floor, be patient. We figured if we held them to under 45, we’d have a good chance, which is what we did tonight.”

“We knew it was going to be tough,” Medford head coach Ryan Brown said. “With what they did at River Falls (a 54-39 win on Friday), we knew this was going to be a tough team to beat, it was going to take 36 minutes and it was going to take everybody playing their part in the game.”

The win gives Medford another shot at beating yet another recent nemesis, La Crosse Central, in a WIAA Division 2 sectional semifinal tonight, Thursday, in Menomonie. The Riverhawks (21-5) are 3-0 against Medford in matchups this season and last and come into the game at playing their best basketball of the season with a 12-game winning streak, including two road wins over their Mississippi Valley Conference co-champion Onalaska.

In Saturday’s game, Rice Lake was determined to slow the pace of the game and limit possessions, defend the Raiders hard and get the ball into the hands of the Orr brothers and have them make plays on offense.

Part of countering that was Medford making a more concerted effort to get its inside game going with the senior trio of Baumgartner, Charlie Kleist and Ty Metz. Along with Baumgartner’s 18 points and five rebounds, Kleist scored 12 points and grabbed five rebounds and Metz had six key points, including some big free throws late.

“I thought that was a difference for us,” Brown said. “When we played inside out, that was where we had an advantage. They chased hard on our shooters on screens. They do a good job defensively. There’s no team that we play that knows our offense as well as they do. We knew they’d be prepared for that. We really wanted to establish inside. I thought between Ty and Charlie getting it done inside, that was big for us. We felt like winning points in the paint would be big. The first half we had no offensive rebounds. In the second half, we had some huge ones and some putbacks.”

“We knew coming in they were a really good shooting team, but we didn’t know if they were super physical,” Metz said. “We didn’t think they were as physical as us. They were physical, but they weren’t as physical as us.”

Tyler Orr kept Rice Lake right on Medford’s heels in the first half, scoring the Warriors’ last 11 points and pulling the Warriors within 20-18 at the break. He drove the Raiders crazy with his quickness and ability to get into the lane and score from close range.

He had just four after halftime, however. That’s when Zach Orr kept Rice Lake in it with 10 of his 12 points, including a pair of 3s.

“We tried not to let the Orrs get on top,” Metz said. “We tried to keep them on a side. When we kept them on a side, then they couldn’t start on top and dribble at us and attack some gaps. We just had to plug the gaps. That’s what we did.”

“When he has the ball anywhere you just have to pinch,” Baumgartner said of Tyler Orr. “He somehow finds ways to find gaps and get through gaps that normal people just don’t do. We give credit to Rice Lake. They played a tough game. Zach Orr, he’s a shooter. As you saw today he had a nice game.”

The game’s decisive stretch occurred midway through the second half. A rebound basket by Harrison Lipke pulled the Warriors within 30-28 with about 11 minutes to go, but Kleist answered by scoring over Lipke and Tanner Hraby took it right to the defense and hit a short shot to put the Raiders up 34-28. Tyler Orr turned his ankle on a drive to the rim and Rice Lake head coach was whistled for a technical foul while arguing a no-call on the play with 8:34 to go. Baumgartner sank both free throws. Right after that, Matthew Farm put his shoulder into Raider Anakin Stokes as he tried to set a screen. Farm’s foul was ruled intentional and Stokes hit one of the two free throws with 8:23 left. Medford regained possession due to the intentional foul and Baumgartner found Kleist cutting through the lane and he scored, putting Medford up 39-28 with 8:10 to play.

“We knew we had a bit of a size advantage,” Kleist said. “Me, Lenny and Ty all have post-up ability, we knew we could get some points that way to help ourselves.”

Seeing Rice Lake get T’d up in a critical juncture had Brown kidding about his circumstance after the game as his voice was barely audible after losing it the night before.

“I said I think the Lord had a plan for me losing my voice,” he said. “It was a physical game but that’s how we want to play. Hopefully my calmness and inability to say anything to my team helped. But you can do that when you have a bunch of seniors out there, they’re the ones talking in timeouts, they’re the ones talking on the floor and they knew what their goal was and what they had to do. I just can’t be happier for them.”

The Warriors ramped up their defensive pressure from that point and fouled often to try to lengthen the game. Zach Orr’s 3-pointer with 4:28 left got them within 45-37 and his second 3 made it 4640 with 2:47 to go. But for those who had visions of a repeat of Rice Lake’s improbable rally to beat Medford in a sectional semifinal two years ago, the Raiders calmed those fears.

They got a key re-load after Zach Rudolph missed two bonus throws and Hraby picked Medford up by making his free throws. Rudolph then forced a big turnover, throwing the ball off a Warrior as he was going out of bounds, leading to two Metz free throws with 2:00 to go that made it 50-40. The celebration in Raider Hall started when Rudolph put away a breakaway layup with 51 seconds to go for the game’s final points.

“You kinda get some flashbacks,” Baumgartner said. “I looked up at one point and we were up 13 and all of sudden, it’s an eight-point game and they have the ball and we had just missed a one-and-one. It was kinda the same deal as two years ago, but luckily enough we got the ball into the right peoples’ hands and knocked down the free throws.”

Hraby scored nine points for Medford, including making all four of his free throws. Charlie Gierl hit two second-half free throws off a Rice Lake turnover. Rudolph had five points, all in the second half, including a 3 that put Medford up 30-24 at the time. He had three assists and two rebounds and was the primary defender on Tyler Orr, though through switches, everyone got their turns.

“In the second half I thought our defense was really good,” Brown said. “Obviously we were a little fortunate that (Orr) tweaked his ankle. But guys just stepped up and made huge plays. You can’t say enough about Zach Rudolph. I don’t know if there’s anyone out on the floor who wants it more than he does. We have a lot of guys who really want it. His defense and the approach he’s taken over the last week and really the last couple of months, we do not win some of these games without him, without a doubt.”

No doubt, this win was sweet. “It always seems like we’re at the butt end of the score every time we play them,” Kleist said. “It feels good to finally beat them.”

Medford’s Tanner Hraby takes a hard dribble past Rice Lake defender Zach Orr during the first half of Saturday’s 53-42 win over the Warriors.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS