MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER - Raiders falter after bad break at Pines, get into shootout with Jays

The Medford Raiders grabbed the lead twice Tuesday afternoon, but host Northland Pines had the stronger finishing kick, scoring the last three goals to secure a 4-2 Great Northern Conference boys soccer win.

By scoring twice, Medford broke a fivegame streak where it hadn’t scored a goal, and it didn’t take the Raiders long to find the back of the net in each half.

But the Eagles were fairly relentless in getting shots off and they got a couple of breaks in the second half to improve to 24-1 in the GNC and 6-4-3 overall.

Medford remained competitive, but the season’s first win eluded the Raiders, who fell to 0-5-3 and 0-8-3 overall.

“It was nice to score some goals and score them quickly to start the halves,” Medford head coach Adam Derr said. “But then our passing dipped a little and our defense dipped a little. They had a lot of shots.”

Pines got 31 shots off with 20 being on goal. Medford goal keeper Eric Paul recorded 16 saves.

Medford’s first goal came in the third minute. The Raiders applied some pressure on the Eagles’ back line and Carter Ziehlke stole a pass that was intended to go back to the Pines goal keeper. He made a nice move and scored for a 1-0 lead.

“That was a good team goal and a good individual goal,” Derr said. “Ethan Emmerich put good pressure on their guy and forced the bad pass back.”

The lead held until the 30th minute when the Eagles got a good shot into the upper right corner. The game remained tied 1-1 into halftime.

Coming out of the break, it took Medford just 46 seconds to find the back of the net again. Oliver Koffler got a good pass to Nathan Schuld, who did the rest and put Medford on top.

“It was a new experience for us to play from in front,” Derr said. “We haven’t had that much this season. We’ve actually done it twice against Pines.”

The Eagles got a late goal to force a 1-1 tie the first time back on Sept. 4. This time, the game turned on some controversy in the 52nd minute. On a scoring chance, an Eagle collided hard with Paul in front of the goal. As those two were still on the ground, the ball wound up deflecting backward and was kicked into the goal from about 30 yards out. While Derr and the Raiders strongly disagreed, the goal was allowed to stand.

Seven minutes later, the Eagles took the lead and in the 75th minute, they got an insurance goal that put it away. In between, Medford thought it had a tying goal from Keagan Gehrke, but he was called for a foul when a Pines defender fell as both went for the ball and it was waved off.

“Overall we played well in spurts,” Derr said. “We have to keep control of the ball better when we’re playing with a lead and we needed to play just a little bit better on defense.”

The Raiders have their first home game in three weeks tonight, Thursday, when they host Antigo at 7 p.m. The Red Robins won the first meeting 3-2. The Raiders head to Rhinelander Tuesday for a 7 p.m. rematch with the Hodags, who won a Sept. 11 shootout with the Raiders after the teams played to a 0-0 draw.

Medford hosts GNC-leading Lakeland on Oct. 9.

Shootout in Merrill

The defenses won the 80 minutes of regulation Friday, which ended in a scoreless tie. Then it became an offensive penalty kick shootout, which Merrill won in seven rounds, 7-6, to earn two GNC points over Medford’s one.

The tie was the third Medford has played to within the Great Northern Conference this fall. Unfortunately for the Raiders, they’ve also now come out on the short end of all three penalty-kick shootouts.

“We’ve gone from scoring only two goals in the first shootout with Pines to three in our second one to six in this one, so our penalty shooting is getting better,” Derr said. “I said it after the Pines shootout and I still say at this point in the season, these shootouts are all about practice. The Merrill game ended in a tie, so it gave us another practice and it showed our shooting is getting better. Eric was better in goal as well. It’s good to get this experience during the season. It’s a good test that will hopefully have us ready if we get into a shootout in the playoffs.”

Medford shot second in each round of the shootout and, for six rounds, matched successful kicks made by Merrill.

Paul got his hands on the the opening kick of the shootout by Blue Jay Caleb Gennrich, but Gennrich’s aim to the upper left corner was good enough. Ziehlke then went right to and evened the score at one. Merrill’s left-footed Elijah Hohman pushed one just inside the right post, countered by Schuld’s shot to the upper right corner. James Crockford’s low shot to the left just got under the diving Paul. Judah Wipf’s low shot found the right corner to make it 3-3.

Ryan Bares buried his shot to the right for Merrill in round four, while Koffler went high to the left to tie it. Another lefty from Merrill, Vincent Keenan hit a line drive that Paul couldn’t quite reach to his right. Emmerich then put his shot in the upper right corner to tie it at five and send the shootout to a sudden-victory situation.

Paul just missed on another save as Ryker Voecks’ shot got into the upper left corner. Paul took care of tying it again himself, tucking his shot into the upper right corner. Merrill goalie Matthew Holloway got his seventh-round shot just inside the left post. Medford’s Beck Mayrer wasn’t as fortunate as his shot bounced just outside the right post.

“(Assistant coach) Jake Dassow was working with Eric and Logan Fisher last week on penalty kicks and sharing some pointers. It showed with Eric. He was close on the first one. Other than the first one, he faced some really good nice shots. As a goal keeper, you’re hoping to maybe get a hand on one of them.”

In regulation, Medford was able to get 10 shots off with six being on goal. Schuld had three of the shots on goal. Gehrke just missed the post on a good shot. Merrill had 15 shots with Paul getting saves on the 12 that were on goal.