WIAA DIV. 2/GNC BOYS TENNIS - Schulz gets to sectional meet; Medford finishes third in GNC
Whether they came at the end of sets or the end of matches, tiebreakers were the theme of Tuesday’s WIAA Division 2 Lakeland tennis subsectional for the Medford Raiders.
One key tiebreaker went Medford’s way as senior Cale Schulz won a match tiebreaker to pull off a mild upset in flightone singles. The win sent him to sectional play today, Thursday, hosted by Altoona at the Menard Tennis Center in Eau Claire. Schulz’s victory was one of two matches won by Raiders in Tuesday’s seven-team meet. Parker Hill had the other at numbertwo singles.
With four points, the Raiders finished fifth in the subsectional standings, two points ahead of Ashland and Stevens Point Pacelli. Osceola had the high score for the day with 18 points. Lakeland and Amery tied for second with 16 points and Baldwin-Woodville scored 14.
As a flight-one player, Schulz needed just one win to advance to the sectional meet. Playing as the sixth seed, Schulz was defeated in the first set 6-1 by third-seeded Benson Campbell (12-11), a senior from Baldwin-Woodville. Schulz regrouped and took the second set 6-2 to force a 10-point match tiebreaker. That wasn’t decided until Schulz got the necessary two-point margin at 12-10.
Schulz improved to 5-8 in singles matches this year and is now a win away from qualifying for state. That quarterfinal win won’t be easy to get today as he is matched up with the second seed from the Altoona subsectional, junior Trenton Navarre of Altoona, who is 13-4. The two played each other back on April 17. Navarre won 6-1, 6-0.
Quarterfinal winners today in flight one will spend the rest of the day competing for sectional placement and trying to improve their standing for state bracket placement. The Schulz/Navarre winner will face either Lakeland’s Dominic Gironella (20-5) or La Crosse Logan’s Harrison Pataska (14-10) in the semifinals. The other side of the bracket has Eli Smith of Eau Claire Regis (12-9) facing Blake Anderson of Amery (11-4) and West Salem’s Kyle Hehli (22-2), the fourth-place finisher at state a year ago, meeting Mason Jordan of Osceola (12-11). Hehli eliminated Medford’s Brayden Balciar in last year’s sectional tournament. Schulz is 0-3 against Gironella this year and lost 6-3, 6-3 to Jordan back on April 12.
Hill needed two wins in flight-two singles to advance to sectional play. The Raider junior got halfway there. Playing as the four-seed, he took the first set 6-3 over fifth-seeded Wyatt Larson of Osceola. The two battled to a 6-6 tie in the second set, forcing a tiebreaker to decide the set. Hill won that 7-5 to complete the straight-set win.
That put Hill up against top-seeded Jack Stepec of Lakeland. Stepec got his second win of the season over Hill 6-2, 6-4 to advance. Hill’s season ended at 7-8 in singles matches.
Sophomore Christian Preuss moved up to flight three for Tuesday’s tournament. As the fifth seed, he was defeated by fourth-seeded Angus Callender of Lakeland. Callender took the first set 6-4. Preuss pushed the second set to a tiebreaker, but Callender won that 7-5 to take the set 7-6 and the match. Preuss finished 3-8 in singles matches.
Freshman Ethan Jones filled Medford’s spot at number-four singles. He drew the five-seed and took fourth-seeded Lincoln Lemieux of Ashland to a tiebreaker in the first set. Lemieux won the tiebreaker 7-5 to take the set 7-6. He completed the straight-set win by taking the second set 6-1. Jones went 3-4 in varsity singles matches in his first season.
Senior Mason Reimann and sophomore Blaine Searles needed one win at flight-one doubles to advance to the sectional. Playing as the fifth seed, they were defeated in their only match by the fourth-seeded team of Gage Bowe and Carson Teglund of Lakeland 6-4, 6-3. The T-Bird duo beat Reimann and Searles for the second time in less than a week. Reimann and Searles compiled a 5-7 record while playing together in the top doubles spot this spring.
Juniors Jaeden Brandner and Cole Zenner opened play as the fourth seed at flight-two doubles. The fifth-seeded team of Nelson Wilcox and Sean Graf, seniors from Amery, beat them 6-3, 6-1, avenging a three-set loss the Raiders had handed them back on April 12. Zenner and Brandner went 4-7 together in flight two.
In flight-three doubles, Medford’s sophomore team of Cash Thums and Axl Spanbauer drew the fifth seed and got off to a good start against the fourth-seeded sophomore team of Collin Sykora and Mason Heebink of Baldwin-Woodville. They took the first set 7-5, but the Blackhawks stormed back for a 6-2 win in the second set to force at 10-point match tiebreaker. Sykora and Heebink won that 10-7, ending the season for Spanbauer and Thums at 4-4.
Altoona is the team leader going into sectional play having scored 24 points in its subsectional Tuesday. Eau Claire Regis was second in that meet with 18 points. The top-scoring team after play today earns a spot in the WIAA Division 2 team state tournament set for June 14 in Madison. Individually, flight-one semifinalists and flight-two champions automatically qualify for the June 5-7 state tournament, also in Madison.
Third in GNC
The Raiders ended their regular season on Thursday by placing third in the Great Northern Conference’s championship tournament, also hosted by Lakeland.
With 21 tournament points, Medford finished with 57 conference points. They were passed by Lakeland, who scored 30 on the day to finish with 64 for the season. The Rhinelander Hodags continued their GNC dominance with 34 points for the day and 78 for the season as they clinched the program’s 11th straight conference championship.
With the conference being down to five teams this year, the opportunities were increased for All-GNC awards with topthree finishes. The Raiders got the honorable mention spots in five flights and a second-team All-GNC spot at numberthree doubles, where there were just three entries. Medford’s Spanbauer and Thums were the top seed, giving them an automatic spot in the championship match, where they were beaten 6-1, 6-2 by Rhinelander’s Danek Koniar and Aidan Lueder. The Hodags also rallied to beat Lakeland’s Eli Novak and Braden Seifert in the semifinal match 4-6, 6-3, 10-5.
All four of Medford’s singles entrants placed third in their flights. In flight one, Schulz drew the fourth seed and had to play an extra match against fifth-seeded Josh Openeye of Stevens Point Pacelli. Schulz cruised 6-0, 6-0 in that match to earn a semifinal matchup with the topseeded Gironella. He put up a solid fight but Gironella prevailed 6-3, 6-3 to advance to the final against Ashland’s Adrian Erickson, which he won 6-0, 6-0.
Schulz, meanwhile, went to the thirdplace match against Rhinelander’s Payton McCue. Just as they did on May 13, they split the first two sets and went to a 10point match tiebreaker. Unlike the first meeting where McCue won a marathon tiebreaker 15-13, Schulz won this one 10-6 to take the match 6-4, 3-6, 10-6.
Schulz won an individual honor for the second straight year. He was second in flight three in 2024.
In flight two, Hill came in as the twoseed, but he came up a point or two short in a thrilling semifinal match with thirdseeded Karter Massey of Rhinelander. Hill took the first set 6-3 and nearly completed a straight-set win, but Massey survived the second set, winning the tiebreaker 9-7 to win the set 7-6. Massey then won the 10point match tiebreaker 11-9 to advance to the final, which he lost 6-0, 7-5 to Stepec.
Hill rebounded from the tough defeat to win the third-place match 6-3, 6-2 over Ashland’s Ryan O’Bey.
In flight three, Medford’s secondseeded Ethan Kollmansberger was beaten 6-1, 6-0 by the third-seeded Callender in the semifinal round. Kollmansberger came back with a solid 6-2, 6-2 win over Ashland’s Lucas Oliphant in the thirdplace match. In the number-four bracket, the third-seeded Preuss lost his semifinal match to second-seeded Sawyer Brown of Lakeland 6-2, 6-4. He went to a tiebreaker to win his third-place match with fourthseeded Lemieux 6-3, 3-6, 10-5.
Reimann and Searles drew the third seed in the flight-one doubles bracket. Rhinelander’s Aiden Ostermann and Michael Schiek defeated them 6-1, 6-1 in the semifinal round. The fourth-seeded Bowe and Tegland beat them 6-2, 6-1 in the third-place match.
In flight two, there were just three teams as Ashland’s Steven Snedker and Wyatt Granados withdrew. Zenner and Brandner lost their semifinal match 6-4, 6-2 to Lakeland’s Jayden Shepski and Marshall Czlapinski. They won the thirdplace match by default over Ashland. Rhinelander’s Van Tulowitzky and Hart Hokens beat Lakeland 6-1, 6-0 in the title match.
Ashland scored 12 points in the meet to finish with 28 for the season. Pacelli got six points from its flight-one doubles championship team of Marcus Lansing and Hunter Wrezinski and finished with 14 points overall.
