Soccer team limits the potent Hodags attack, drops 3 straight
MEDFORD GIRLS SOCCER
The Medford Raiders were determined not to let Rhinelander repeat the six-goal first half it put on them back on April 13 and made a game of Tuesday’s rematch well into the second half before the Hodags pulled away for a 4-0 win at Raider Field.
Ava Lamers scored two goals and had two assists as Rhinelander improved to 6-1 in the Great Northern Conference and remained a half-game behind Lakeland, who went to 6-0 Tuesday with a 3-0 win over Mosinee.
That wasn’t quite as explosive as Lamers was in the first meeting, when she played a role in all six of the first-half goals in Rhinelander’s 6-0 win. The Raiders, in fact, were pleased with their defensive efforts in Tuesday’s loss, but the Hodags have the GNC’s highest-scoring offense which was too tough to contain for the full 80 minutes.
“They’re one of the top teams in the conference,” Medford head coach Tanya Tessmann said. “We were looking at holding them, but this was definitely not just a defensive game. We definitely had some possession. We had some shots. The girls played tough. We are out one of our starting defensive players, Anna Gierl is out right now. But I thought our defense did well. They were holding their line. We got them offsides a few times. The defense squeezed middle more. We were looking good.”
Medford got the good first scoring chance 2:40 in when Mallory Richter’s open shot just sailed over the crossbar.
“That was a great way to start,” Tessmann said. “We talked about being aggressive right away and coming out fast. I felt the girls were more composed. They were taking their time a little bit and looking up, looking for those passes, but still feeling that urgency.”
The Raiders’ energy on the pitch increased with each defensive stop in the early going, reaching a fever pitch when Nikki Poetzl booted a ball out of trouble after a ball handling violation gave Rhinelander an indirect free kick inside the box 13:30 in.
Unfortunately, two minutes later, the Hodags’ dynamic duo of Lamers and Sophia Miljevich burned the Raiders when Lamers threaded the needle on a perfect pass to Miljevich, who made a run toward the left post. Miljevich muscled past defender Holly Grube and then punched the shot underneath goal keeper Sophia Brunner for a pretty goal that wound up being the only one of the half.
“We talked more about defense and holding, keeping that position with each girl when Rhinelander had the ball and that’s what we did,” Tessmann said.
The Raiders had two good pushes into Rhinelander territory in the first 40 seconds of the second half, but couldn’t make something happen. The ball got to the other end of the field and momentum started slipping away on a tough break 1:21 into the half. Brunner was whistled for handling a ball outside of her box, leading to a direct kick from Lamers. That kick did not find the net, but it found a Raider’s hand in the box, leading to a penalty kick that she pulled low to the left to beat Brunner and make it 2-0.
Lamers pushed another perfect pass to Morgan Van Zile, who snuck one inside the left post at 55:24. Lamer’s’ leftfooted bullet from 20 yards out closed the scoring at 62:56.
Brunner was credited with 13 saves. Rhinelander took 20 shots.
“The girls still played tough,” Tessmann said, noting how both teams had some girls take balls in the face, causing a couple of bloody noses during the game. “There were just a couple little mistakes that cost us. But still I’m happy that we got some shots. Megan Schaefer had two shots, Alexis Szydel had a shot, Mallory Richter had that one. We had a couple on goal.”
Now 2-4 in the GNC and 3-10 overall, Medford has its first game of the year on grass tonight, Thursday, at Mosinee. Game time is 7 p.m. under Mosinee’s new lights. Medford has a non-conference trip to Rice Lake Saturday with a 1 p.m. start and will host league-leading Lakeland Tuesday at 7 p.m.
“We’re going to hopefully carry this over into Mosinee,” Tessmann said. “We want to come out with the same amount of intensity. Watching film, we had the speed over Mosinee. It should be a good, fun game.”
West 4, Medford 0
The field was tilted in Wausau West’s favor from start to finish Friday in the Warriors’ 4-0 non-conference win over Medford at Raider Field. The Raiders fell behind 2-0 in the early going and did not put a shot on goal the entire night.
West, on the other hand, took 27 shots, 19 of which were on goal and 15 of which were saved by Brunner.
“They definitely had some height on us,” Tessmann said. “We just talked at halftime about trying to box them out as well as we could. Wausau West had some really good one-touch passes and put them right where they wanted them to be.”
Allison Raasch scored off an Abigail Names assist to give West the lead and Emma Morehead’s unassisted score made it 2-0. That was the lead West settled for going into halftime.
Senior midfielder Lexie White was the dominant player of the second half. She took a pass and got behind Medford’s defensive line at 53:22, got through some late resistance and scored. White scored again with just 1:13 left going left to right with a left-footed shot and getting it inside the post. Raasch had the assist.
The Raiders had a couple of highlight saves. In the 30th minute, Brunner was able to punch a shot away from the net and Talyn Peterson headed it out of trouble. Grube made a terrific non-goalie save to stop what looked like a sure West goal in the second half.
The Warriors improved to 3-3 overall with the win.
“We were able to play a lot of our players from our bench,” Tessmann said. “They held strong and never gave up.”
Mosinee 3, Medford 1
A couple of well-placed shots by Mosinee’s Kaitlyn Selle and a few bad breaks were the difference Thursday in Mosinee’s 3-1 win over Medford at Raider Field.
The result put Mosinee, Medford and Northland Pines all at 2-3 behind frontrunners Lakeland and Rhinelander as the first half of GNC play concluded.
Selle’s goals came in a span of just under four minutes and then an own goal put Medford in a 3-0 first-half hole. The Raiders got one back quickly, but that was the end of the scoring as both defenses held the other team scoreless over the last 56-plus minutes.
“We just had a couple of unlucky touches, some corner kicks that didn’t go our way,” Tessmann said. “I’m excited to go to Mosinee next week because I feel we can get it back.”
Both of Selle’s goals came on high shots that found their way over Medford goal keeper Sophia Brunner and under the crossbar. They came at the 12:43 and 16:38 marks of the first half.
“We just gave Selle too much time on the first half and she had the shot,” Tessmann said. “It went over Brunner’s head right under the crossbar. Same thing on the second shot. Just under the crossbar between fingertips and crossbar.”
The toughest break of the game came at 20:51 when a Mosinee corner kick was deflected by the Raiders into their own net.
“I loved to see us being aggressive,” Tessmann said. “We went to the ball and we were actually trying to get a head on it, which sometimes can be scary. It just didn’t go the direction we wanted to.”
The Raiders got their break of the night not long after that at 23:37. Sierra Tessmann tried to match Selle by going for the crossbar, but her shot hit it square and bounced off. The ball found the foot of Szydel, who punched it home for her second goal of the season.
Tessmann came close on another high shot that Mosinee keeper Morgan Hoernke nabbed at the 54:50 mark in the second half. A shot off a corner kick was saved a little more than 11 minutes later and Shayla Radlinger got a shot on goal at the 69:00 mark but Hoernke knocked that one out of bounds. Out of the ensuing corner kick, Megan Schaefer’s long right-to-left shot went wide.
“I felt like we had possession for the majority of the game,” coach Tessmann said. “We had some good passing we heard talking. I heard some of the girls who are kind of quiet and have soft voices yell and be loud. It was great to hear them talking. The defense held good. Talyn Peterson is quick out there. When they get past our outside, she comes and crosses over and takes it.
“Maddie Clarkson had a strong game, pressuring and containing until she came out with knee concerns. Makenna Tlusty saw more playing time as she was relieving Clarkson and did well stepping up.”
Holly Grube gets behind the ball and looks to advance it during the first half of Tuesday’s loss to Rhinelander.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
