WEEK 6 FOOTBALL - It’s a Friday of short road trips for all three local football teams
As the last weekend of September arrives, all three local high school football teams currently sit in playoff position, per the weekly unofficial playoff matrix rankings conducted by Andy LaVoy, one of the developers of the matrix, which will be used for the first time by the WIAA this fall to determine its tournament field and brackets.
It’s week six, marking the two-thirds point of the 11-man season and the threequarters point of the eight-man season.
The Medford Raiders took a big jump in the Division 3 unofficial rankings with their win over then-unbeaten Lakeland, going from 34th last week to 16th, which get a first-round home game. They look to keep the momentum going this Friday when they visit Wausau East in Great Northern Conference play.
The Lumberjacks (1-4) got off to a solid start, beating Westby 30-6 and giving what was then a top-10 ranked Division 3 team, La Crosse Logan, a battle before losing 29-21 in non-conference action. GNC play hasn’t gone so well as the Lumberjacks are 0-3 with losses to Tomahawk (11-10), Rhinelander (28-14) and Mosinee (35-7). In last week’s loss to Mosinee, East scored on its first drive to take a 7-0 lead and was within 13-7 into the middle of the third quarter, before a couple of interceptions helped the Indians pull away.
Medford won last year’s contest 44-6, but few players from that matchup remain from either side.
Among some of the key players who are back for East are Iain Stahel, the team’s leading rusher, and receivers Kayden Meverden Dylan Saylers, who both got All-GNC honorable mention on offense last year. Meverden was a secondteam defensive back. Second-team All-GNC kicker Gio Gomez also is back.
Xander Klein is the team’s quarterback this year, primarily operating out of the shotgun. The Lumberjacks are likely to use the short passing game a lot. They do possess some size on the lines and with some of its receivers.
Much like last week against Lakeland, the Raiders might not be able to use their base 5-2 a lot.
“Their running back is back, he’s a very good player,” Medford head coach Ted Wilson said. “He’s a hard runner and a pretty dynamic kid both running and catching the ball out of the backfield. They have a slough of pretty decent wide receivers, including (Meverden) from last year. They play a lot of spread so we’ll probably have to spend more of our time out of our base defense and more into a nickel look with five d-backs.”
You could say it’s rivalry week on the eight-player front.
The Gilman Pirates, ranked first in the coaches poll and third in the matrix rankings, look to re-focus after their 38-12 win over McDonell Central in a monster mid-season matchup last week. They’ll take the short 15-mile trip to Thorp.
The Cardinals come in at 2-3 overall and with a 2-2 North Central East Conference record with a 36-16 win over Lake Holcombe last week and a 26-18 crossover win over Prairie Farm in week one. They are coming off a 48-12 loss to Owen-Withee.
“Thorp is a team I thought maybe was going to be a surprise underdog this year in the conference,” Gilman head coach Robin Rosemeyer. “They would still be OK in the conference, but they lost a tough game to Alma Center Lincoln (16-12 in week three). They’re fairly young, but they are athletic. They have some athletic kids that we will have to be concerned about.”
Rosemeyer said Thorp has shown a variety of defensive looks, so Gilman will have to prepare for all of them.
“Offensively they’ll probably try to spread us out on offense to make us guard sideline to sideline,” he said. “We’ll have to be sure tacklers in the open field. They’re going to run it and throw it pretty equally.”
The Rib Lake Redmen will visit their former 11-man teammates from Prentice in the Buccaneers’ homecoming game Friday. This will be the teams’ second meeting since their split. Rib Lake won last year 46-32.
Rib Lake comes in at 2-3 overall with a Northwoods East Conference win at Chequamegon and an 80-14 conference crossover pummeling of Winter-Birchwood last week. Injuries have tested Rib Lake’s depth, but the offense had no trouble last Friday, moving the ball at will on the ground with quarterback Talon Scheithauer and guard turned running back Ethan Cook. Tight end Grant Bead and receiver Josiah Mann also had big days.
Prentice, also trying to make it work with limited numbers, forfeited its game with Phillips last week and is 1-4 overall. The win came in non-conference play, a 44-7 victory at South Shore in week two. The Bucs have struggled in the league though, suffering lopsided losses to Athens, Hurley and Chequamegon.
Rib Lake will look to keep things rolling heading into a tough homecoming matchup next week against unbeaten Flambeau. The Falcons’ 5-0 record will get tested tonight, Thursday when they host Phillips in what is shaping up to be the game that decides the conference title. Rib Lake is 23rd in this week’s unofficial matrix rankings, which would hypothetically put them in line for a six-seed in the playoffs.
“I think they’re kind of in the same boat as us in terms of numbers,” Rib Lake head coach Austin Edwards said. “I’ve been around long enough, not just in Rib Lake, it’s a Phillips thing too, to know what the rivalry is like. I always tell people if you think this is going to be a game where they roll over for you, it’s not going to be like that. It’s Prentice. It’s a very hard-nosed attitude that they have. There’s nothing that comes easy when you play against a team like that. One thing you can for sure count on is that they’re going to come into this game with the attitude of they’re going to win and they’re going to have the attitude that they don’t want to make anything easy for us. That’s just how Prentice teams are.”
