Stingy defense fuels Wolverine win
Wood River girls trim Gooding 37-27
One quarter of outstanding defense
propelled the Wood River High School girls’ varsity basketball team to a
37-27 Sawtooth Central Idaho Conference win over Gooding last Tuesday in
Hailey.
Wood River’s mid-season success story of
five wins in six games has been built around excellent team defense. That’s
what the Wolverines used to blank Gooding 10-0 in the second and lead 17-8
at the half.
Junior 6-1 post Kristine Hilt (8.5 ppg)
played the intimidator with 5 blocked shots in the first half alone. Hilt
finished the night with 12 points, 10 rebounds and 2 steals. The
Wolverines used their height advantage to pile up 35 boards.
Until Wood River’s defense clamped down,
the match-up looked like a toss-up, much like Gooding’s 33-31 victory
over Wood River Dec. 14. The Senators led 8-7 at the first break and the
Wolverines were missing a lot of makeable shots.
That all changed when leading Wood River
scorer Laurel Williams (10.1 ppg) drilled a 3-pointer in the first minute
of the second quarter and took a Jamie King pass to score under the basket
for a 12-8 lead. And the Wolverines never looked back.
Williams (12 points, 3 rebounds, 2 steals)
scored 7 points in the third and Hilt added 5 as coach Brent Carnduff’s
Wood River girls extended their lead to as many as 13.
Three second-half 3-pointers by Gooding’s
Carin Patterson made the score respectable, but Wood River dominated
inside. The Senators fell to 2-15 on the season, 1-7 in SCIC play.
Natalie Green contributed 8 rebounds, Tara
Rushton (9 points) added 6 boards, Jamie King had 3 rebounds, Jessica King
2 and Aspen Wenglikowski 2. Jamie King and Jessica King each had 2
assists.
Wood River (8-7 overall, 3-4 league) won
its season-best third consecutive game and knuckled down last week to
practice for a big showdown with the Filer Wildcats (3-13, 3-4 league) on
Tuesday night.
At stake in Tuesday’s game at Filer and
in Thursday’s SCIC tussle at Buhl (11-5, 6-1 league) are seedings for
the league tournament starting Monday, Jan. 29. Declo (14-3, 7-0) is
leading the SCIC and Kimberly (3-14, 2-6) is right above Gooding in the
standings.
Wood River’s final regular-season home
game is Saturday, Jan. 20 against Middleton.