Hodag Highlights: Week of Sept. 4

Landon Bates makes the catch on a throw from Truman Lamers for a first down.

Football, soccer, volleyball, tennis

Bob Mainhardt photos

FOOTBALL

Two 3-0 teams faced off at Mike Webster stadium on Friday night in what figured to be a defensive battle. The final score, 13-7 in favor of the Hodags, made that point. The Hodag defense only gave up 89 total yards and minus yards and no first downs in the second half.

Hayward scored first in the second quarter with 7:41 left in the quarter. The Hodags’ Owen Kurtz scored with 44 seconds left in the half to tie the game at 7; Rhinelander would score the second touchdown with 6:02 left in the third quarter and miss the extra point try to make it a 13-7 game. Payton Campbell led the Hodags on the ground with 83 yards.

The game was the annual salute to service game as the team had their pregame meal with current servicemen, military veterans, deputies, first responders and firefighters. The team was then escorted from the school to the stadium by the sheriff’s department, fire departments and the military honor guard that also presented the colors for the national anthem before the game at midfield.

Next for the Hodags is Antigo at home for the annual Bell Game Sept. 15.

SOCCER

The Lakeland T-Birds came to Mike Webster stadium for a conference matchup with both teams undefeated in conference. Will Quinn took a free kick after a foul in the 29th minute. The kick was placed into the box and bounced around until Mason Eyer eventually placed it into the net for the 1-0 Hodag lead. The score would hold up even with the T-Birds out shooting the Hodags 24-12.

Over the weekend the Hodags hosted an invite and tied both Ashland and Shawano in the two games played.

VOLLEYBALL

The Hodag girls could not hold onto early leads in two of the three games and could not sustain the momentum, losing to Lakeland 0-3 by scores of 19-25, 8-25 and 15-25. The Hodags were led by Kelci Beran with three kills, Macey Schmoeger with three service aces, setter Lucy Lindner had four assists and 13 digs and Libbey Buchmann chipped in with nine digs.

TENNIS

On Thursday the Hodag girls tennis team suffered their first conference loss of the season to Wausau Newman 3-4. All three doubles teams went to three sets with only the No. 1 team of Karmen Lopez and Kayla Tessman coming out on top.

In singles, Tori Riopel at No. 1 and Shayla Coppenger playing at No. 3, both won in straight sets.