MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER - Medford unable to spoil Mosinee’s GNC championship party

MEDFORD BOYS SOCCER

A slow start against a fired-up team trying to win its first-ever Great Northern Conference championship was costly Thursday for the Medford Raiders, who dropped their regular-season finale 3-1 at Mosinee.

The Indians pounced on two first-half opportunities and then tacked on their third goal early in the second half to assure themselves of that first conference title. The Raiders did play a much better second half and got the game’s final goal from Gaige Ingersoll to avoid the shutout.

Medford finished GNC play in fourth place at 3-6-1 and takes a 6-8-1 overall record into WIAA Division 3 tournament play. Mosinee went 8-1-1 to win the title by two points, 26-24, over 8-2 Lakeland. The Indians open post-season play as the top seed in the sectional halfbracket.

“It was kind of the tale of the season,” Medford head coach Adam Derr said. “We played well for spurts and we didn’t play well in spurts.”

The rough part for Medford was the first half. Thursday’s start was almost identical to the one the Raiders had Sept. 14 when Mosinee quickly scored at 10:32 and that wound up being the difference in a 1-0 loss. This time, the Indians got on the board at 11:54.

“It was almost the exact time and it came on a similar goal,” Derr said. “We got beat on defense stabbing at it, they sent a through ball, ran on to it and put it into the back of the net.”

The second goal was a bit of a back breaker, coming just 37 seconds before the half. The Indians got a ball over the top against the Raiders’ defense and punched it in. They scored again in the 55th minute before Ingersoll got his second goal of the season.

“He was battling for the ball in the left corner and was able to just kind of scoop it up over the keeper and got it into the back of the net just inside the far post,” Derr said. “In the second half we played much better. We passed the ball much better. We were a lot more direct. We’ve had trouble putting in goals all season, but we did have a couple of chances. With the way Mosinee played in the first half, they deserved to win. But again our guys didn’t give up. They fought to the last minute, just as they have all season.”

That hustle was evident when they frustrated one of Mosinee’s top players, Jaeger Dhein, to the point where he got a red card with five minutes left in the game.”

“You don’t get that unless your team is out there busting their butts trying to make things happen,” Derr said.

Mosinee got off 13 shots on a windy night, putting seven on goal with Medford’s Cale Schulz collecting four saves. Medford had seven shots. One was saved by Mosinee’s Ben Harris and another, of course, was Ingersoll’s goal. Mosinee had six corner kicks. Medford had one.

WIAA play starts tonight, Thursday, with sixth-seeded Medford taking on third-seeded Shawano at 7 p.m. on the Hawks’ home field, which is unfamiliar territory for the Raiders. But the game marks an opportunity for a fresh start and a chance to make some post-season noise. The winner will get either seventh-seeded New London (8-10-1) or second-seeded Lakeland (12-3-1) in Saturday’s regional final.

Shawano did play several GNC teams early in the season. The Hawks beat Mosinee 2-1 and Northland Pines 1-0 on Aug. 26 and lost 4-2 to Lakeland and tied Rhinelander 3-3 on Sept. 9.

“We’re looking forward to it,” Derr said. “Hopefully we can extend our season by a game or more and just keep playing after that.”