MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER - Breaks go against Medford in loss to Robins, tie with Eagles

Once about as sure a win as the Medford Raiders would get on their soccer schedule, the Antigo Red Robins have become a major thorn in Medford’s side the past three falls.

For the third straight season, Medford came home from Antigo with a loss, this time a 3-2 decision on Tuesday afternoon. The Raiders came out sluggish and paid for it, allowing two first-half goals.

The Raiders outscored Antigo 2-1 in the second half, but that last goal Antigo got proved to be the difference as the Red Robins improved to 1-2 in the GNC and 33 overall. Medford is still seeking its first win, sitting at 0-2-1, 0-4-1.

“Their grass field didn’t help, but it’s not an excuse,” Derr said. “Every team plays on it. We practice on both the turf and the grass. We just seem to not play well on grass. Antigo got us offsides a handful of times, which was something we had worked on. That hurt us at times. But overall we just did not play well in the first half.”

Derr said the Red Robins got two perfectly-placed shots, both from about 30 yards out, to score their first-half goals. The scoring plays were similar as Antigo brought the ball up a side, crossed a pass toward the middle and snuck a shot under the crossbar and just over the reach of goal keeper Eric Paul. “Eric was in good position,” Derr said. The Raiders had flashes of brilliance in the second half that resulted in goals for senior Oliver Koffler. The first half came right off the opening kick. Four passes got Medford into position and an assist from Carter Ziehlke set up Koffler’s first goal that cut the deficit in half.

The momentum was cut short when Antigo beat Medford’s defense for close shot and its third goal, making it 3-1. Koffler’s steal led to his unassisted second goal of the game. But the Raiders never got the equalizer.

“If we pass the ball for 80 minutes like we did when we scored, we look like we can score eight goals a game,” Derr said. “We need to be able to sustain that. We’re just not passing the ball like we know we can.”

The Raiders had seven shots, putting three on goal in the loss. Antigo had 18 shots with Paul getting 10 saves.

Derr said Lucas Mahner and Levi Zuleger had good outings defensively and Ziehlke made some nice runs offensively. The Raiders’ depth was tested when they lost co-captain Nathan Schuld to two yellow cards and Colton Long and Luke Semrau to injury.

Medford and Antigo tied 1-1 in the JV game. Paul played in the field in that one and scored the Raiders’ goal in the first half.

Motivation won’t be hard to find when Medford gets back on the field tonight, Thursday. The Raiders will host their GNC rivals from Rhinelander at 7 p.m. Both teams will be looking for their first win of the season.

“I’m looking forward to Rhinelander,” Derr said. “We always seem to have a good game with them. Our guys get excited for them. We’re back on our turf. I still say every conference game is going to be a dogfight. I don’t know if anyone stands out in the conference, maybe Lakeland. Every team can be beat and I’d say the same about us. We can win every game we play the rest of the season and we can lose every game we play the rest of the season. But we know we have to play better.”

Next week, Medford travels to Lakeland on Tuesday and Mosinee on Sept. 18. Those two teams are off to undefeated starts in conference play.

Shootout loss

On Thursday, the Raiders were a little more than two minutes away from a quality GNC win when bad luck struck, tying their game with Northland Pines, who went on to win the penalty-kick shootout.

The game is officially recorded as a 1-1 tie. The Eagles won the penalty-kick shootout in four rounds 4-2 to earn two points in the GNC standings, while Medford salvaged one.

The Raiders led 1-0 since the 37:49 mark of the first half. Ethan Emmerich was fouled in the penalty box area, giving Medford a penalty shot. Schuld buried that shot, going to his left to get the ball easily past Pines goal keeper Easton Otto to give the Raiders their first goal of the season.

“We played our best game of the season so far,” Derr said. “We got the penalty, Nathan made a great penalty shot. Ethan made a good run into the box to get the penalty. The goal they scored was just unfortunate.”

Medford limited the Eagles to few, if any, good scoring opportunities in the second half until a foul 15 yards out, just outside the box on the far right side of the Eagles’ offensive formation with 2:06 left gave Pines a free kick. Tyler Vojta sent a line drive kick through the box and onto Emmerich’s foot. As he tried to clear it, the ball shot straight up into the air, came down with some backspin and bounced into the upper corner of the net to even things in stunning fashion.

The ironic thing, Derr said, was that Medford almost had the exact thing happen to them two nights earlier against Merrill when Schuld tried to clear a ball.

“We joked about it at practice (Wednesday) how it happened to Nate and then it happened to Ethan against Pines,” Derr said. “When you break it down, it’s a totally unlucky play. At the same time, we need to have better form to clear it.”

Each team had one opportunity to break the tie after that. At 78:23, Paul got to a ball at the edge of the box, just before Eagle Royce Remme did off a long pass to prevent a shot being taken. Medford quickly transitioned the other way and got Ziehlke a shot 20 seconds later that was blocked by an Eagle defender before it got to the net.

Medford had eight shots in the 80 minutes of regulation.

“We passed the ball pretty well that night,” Derr said.

Pines went first in the shootout and Vojta buried the opening shot. Otto stopped Koffler, then Iland Shepherdson scored for the Eagles, and Ziehlke hit the upper corner for Medford to make it 2-1 after two rounds. Dechlan Favorite went to his right and scored the third goal for the Eagles, while Schuld went right with his round-three shot and scored to keep Medford within 3-2.

But Ryan Rydeski’s goal to start round four meant the Raiders could miss no more. Long’s shot sailed just over the crossbar and that was it.