Football: Wausau East spots Rhinelander a 21 point lead but rallies for big GNC win.

For the second straight week the Wausau East football team got off to a very slow start in a Great Northern Conference match-up. Last week, the Lumberjacks spotted Antigo a 14-0 first quarter lead before rallying for a 33-22 win. On Friday night the start was even slower for East. The Lumberjacks went 3 and out on their first four possessions while Rhinelander scored touchdowns on their first three drives to take a 21-0 lead early in the 2nd quarter. However, it was all East after that with 25 unanswered points to beat the Hodags 25-21 and remained tied with Merrill for 2nd place in the GNC.

Rhinelander got on the board with 5:33 left in the first quarter on a 16 yard scoring run by Matthew Haselton and took a 7-0 lead. On the second drive for the Hodags it was 4th and 12 when quarterback Abe Gretzinger hit Tommy Eades on a 17 yard touchdown pass to push the Rhinelander edge to 14-0 with :44 left in the first quarter. The 2nd quarter started like the first as East was forced to punt and Rhinelander would drive to a third straight touchdown as Brayden Dervetski plowed in from 3 yards out to make it 21-0 with 8:40 left in the half.

It would take until the final play of the 2nd quarter for East to finally score as, on 4th down, Camdyn Rye found Henry Maahs for a 7 yard touchdown pass to pull East to within 21-7 at halftime. East drove 67 yards in just 47 seconds on that drive to help turn around the game.

It was a good third quarter for East as the defense stopped Rhinelander on the first drive to set up the offense. However, East again faced a 4th down and goal from the 20 when the Rye-Maahs connection came up big again. Rye hit Maahs over the middle just beyond the goal line for the touchdown and the Hodag lead was down to 21-14 with 5:47 left in the quarter. A poor Rhinelander punt then set up East on the Hodag 35 for the next drive and the Lumberjacks took advantage of the short field for a 1 yard quarterback sneak touchdown by Rye to make it 21-20 after the extra point was blocked with 2:03 left in the third quarter.

That would be the only special teams error for East on a night where the kicking game hurt Rhinelander massively and helped East win the game. In addition to the bad punt after a high snap, the next Rhinelander punt was blocked to again set up the East offense in good field position. East then took the lead on another special teams play as kicker Mathias Clements hit a field goal from 33 yards out with 6:26 left in the game to put the Lumberjacks up for the first time at 23-21. The East defense then again stopped the Rhinelander offense and, instead of trying to punt from near the goal line, the Hodags took a safety with 4:52 left to push the score to 25-21. East was able to get a pair of first downs to take the clock down under two minutes before a fumble gave Rhinelander one last chance from their own 21. The Hodags converted one 4th down situation to push the ball near the 40 but then stopped on downs to finish off the East victory.

Henry Maahs caught 4 passes for 49 yards with 2 touchdowns while Rye hit on 9 of 22 passes for 121 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception while adding 31 yards and a touchdown on the ground. Cash Ryan Seefeldt was again the workhorse with 23 carries for 91 yards. Aiden Kilde had 12 tackles and Xander Klein 11 on defense for East, who improved to 6-2 overall and 4-1 in the GNC heading into a season-finale showdown with Merrill at Thom Field on Friday night.