MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL - Shots fall, defensive energy soars, Medford gets first win

MEDFORD BOYS BASKETBALL

Perfect execution on the game’s first possession Tuesday gave the Medford Raiders the offensive spark they’ve been looking for, and that energy carried to the defensive end as well in a dominant 71-31 victory over Antigo that finally put the boys in the win column after an 0-5 start.

The first score, a backcut and score from Nick Steliga off a Hayden Koester assist, was followed by a 3-point make from Tanner Hraby. Seeing the ball finally go through the basket, the Raiders played with high energy on both ends of the floor and buried the Red Robins, taking a 35-7 lead late in the first half and cruising the rest of the way.

“That’s exactly what we talked about,” Medford head coach Ryan Brown said of just seeing some shots fall. “You want to have that same energy make or miss, but when you make shots, I just thought the energy, the activity with our hands, the activity on the boards was more of what we expect. Something we talked about pre-game was that the reason the name ‘relentless’ stuck is not because we say it all the time. It’s because the kids wearing the jerseys played that way. That’s when people started saying these are that. We said we need to be that and I thought tonight we saw that from these guys.”

The offensive explosion included seven 3-point makes in the first half, this coming from a team that had made just 23% of its 3s in the first five games. Conner Klingbeil hit four of five 3s early on and hit another in the second half, while leading the Raiders with 21 points. Hraby sank a trio of triples in the second half to finish with four as part of his 18-point night. Medford hit 13 3s overall.

“Obviously Conner was big for us,” Brown said. “He shot the ball well. Then for him, it’s just finding that balance of when to take chances and when to be solid. As he gets better at that, he’s going to be a guy that’s hard to take off the floor when he’s making shots. He was huge for us tonight too in guys moving the ball and making that extra pass so that he got those shots. That was great to see, especially with our shooting struggles this year. We know we’re a better shooting team than we’ve been.”

The Raiders also got a big lift from junior Hayden Koester, who earned his first start of the year and responded with 12 points. Koester was part of a newlook starting lineup that included bigs Brayden Balciar and Owen Stockwell being on the floor at the same time. The Raiders also tweaked things defensively, mixing in a healthy dose of zone looks with their usual man-to-man. For one night, at least, it all worked.

“We had to try something,” Brown said. “Sometimes just a little change can work. I thought when we went back to man we were solid. We wanted to try some different lineups, which we got to do. We had a big lineup. When we get Charlie (Gierl) back sometime down the road, it becomes an even bigger lineup, just to be able to physically play with some of these bigger teams.

“It was good,” Brown said. “I think we got 17 deflections in man-to-man and we got 17 deflections in our zone. We got turnovers in both.”

The big blitz that put the game away early started with Medford leading 11-5. Antigo switched to its 1-3-1 zone, but the Raiders were able to zip the basketball around and through it, creating two open 3s for Klingbeil, who drilled both. Balciar knocked down one as well, making it 20-5. Owen Stockwell blocked a couple of shots on the defensive end to get everyone in red and white fired up. Back on offense, Steliga tracked down a long rebound off his own miss and scored and Koester buried a 3 to make it 25-5. Klingbeil again hit back-to-back 3s, the second coming off a Carson Carbaugh assist, to make it 337. Logan Gubser followed with his second score of the half off a steal. Medford led 35-11 at halftime.

The lead grew to 40 midway through the second half at 60-20 following a triple by Hraby.

Gubser scored six points in the win, Carbaugh added five and Steliga chipped in with four. Nick Krause hit two late free throws. Balciar scored three points and provided some strong interior defense with Stockwell.

‘Brayden just has this ability to anticipate and get a block without jumping,” Brown said. “He does a good job with that. ‘Stocks’ too was able to wall up and get big. When they did kind of break our first line of defense, they were there to make tough shots (for Antigo). Gubser and Carbs were just getting up there and just giving us 110% with their energy and defensive deflections. We picked off some passes for some easy shots.”

Ethan Buchman led Antigo (0-4, 2-6) with eight points.

Medford gets a big test tonight, Thursday, when it hosts 5-2 New Richmond at 7:15 p.m. During the holiday week, Medford’s boys and girls will face host Wisconsin Dells and Ripon in a two-day event. The boys meet the Dells at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 27 and Ripon at 1 p.m. the next day.