Wood River settles
for second at McCall tourney
Hailey girls top
Vandals 63-27,
fall to Prairie
It’s a
new year for the Wood River High School girls’ varsity basketball team—and
coach Brent Carnduff hopes that last year’s road success leads to
home-court triumphs for the Wolverines in the weeks ahead.
Wood River
(8-4, 6-3 away), having placed second in last weekend’s McCall Christmas
tournament, will play six of its final eight games on the Hailey hardwoods
starting Thursday, Jan. 3 against Kimberly.
After
Thursday, Wood River entertains Valley of Hazelton Saturday, Jan. 5 and
Gooding next Tuesday.
The
Wolverines are 2-2 in Sawtooth Central Idaho Conference play, but they’ve
got six league games left including rematches against Declo (4-0) and Buhl
(4-0). Kimberly is 2-2, Filer 0-4 and Gooding 0-4.
At McCall
Saturday, Prairie of Cottonwood raced to an early lead and held off Wood
River 50-41 for the championship of the four-team holiday tourney. On
Friday, Wood River beat McCall-Donnelly 63-27.
Prairie, a
perennial Gem State power with seven state girls’ basketball titles from
1977-97, was last year’s State A-3 runner-up with an outstanding 23-2
mark, losing to New Plymouth in the finale.
Leading the
Pirates was senior post player Jamie Chicane, who scored 19 of Prairie’s
39 points in last year’s title game. Against Wood River Saturday,
Chicane tallied 18 of Prairie’s 50 points.
For the
second time in four games, disciplinary problems benched Wood River senior
post player Kristine Hilt, who had topped Wood River with 13 points in
Friday’s 36-point win over McCall. And Wood River got off to a slow
start, trailing 20-13 after one.
Carnduff
said, "We had a slow start. We had quite a few good looks at
3-pointers but they didn’t fall. But we out-rebounded Prairie 27-24, and
Jessica King had a breakthrough game for us."
King, a
5-10 sophomore, led the Wolverines in rebounding and scored a season-high
12 points. Natalie Green added 9 points, Laurel Williams 8, Kelly Haisley
7, Emily Smith 2, Liz Rippon 2 and B.J. Adams 1.
Victory over McCall
Getting
scoring from all 10 players, Wood River defeated the host McCall-Donnelly’s
Vandals 63-27 Friday in the first round of the McCall Christmas
tournament.
Wood River
broke open a close game with a 38-18 scoring advantage in the second and
third periods. Hilt tallied 9 of her team-high 13 points to get Wood River
rolling in the second.
The
Wolverines, winning for the fourth time in five games, out-rebounded
McCall 39-22.
"In
the first quarter we were rusty, trying to figure out a way to penetrate
McCall’s 1-2-2 zone," said Carnduff. "Then our defense
tightened up and our shots started falling."
Williams
(two 3-pointers) tallied 11 points, Tara Rushton 8, Green 8, Haisley 6,
Smith 6, King 4, Adams 3, Rippon 2 and Amanda Engel 2. Wood River shot
9-of-12 from the free throw line.