Road isn’t kind
to Legion nine
Wood River drops
five of six
The young
Wood River American Legion baseball team had a rough introduction to the
road last week, dropping five of six games in its first traveling of the
2002 summer season.
Wood River
(9-7 overall, 1-5 away) spent four days at Pocatello’s Halliwell Park
for the eight-team Pepsi tournament Thursday through Sunday and managed
one win, an 11-2 success over Pocatello Saturday.
Lack of
consistency hurt Wood River, which is relying on many unseasoned Legion
players this year. Coach Lars Hovey said his team played hard Thursday and
Friday but didn’t get any breaks in two losses.
Bonneville
(Layton, Utah) busted loose for four runs in the first and beat Wood River
12-6 Thursday. Paul Tinker knocked three Hailey hits.
Righty
Steve Hansen (3-1) pitched a good game against the Boise Senators Friday
but lost 4-2 when the Wood River defense fell apart in the third and Boise
tallied three unearned runs. "We should have hit the ball better
against Boise," Hovey said.
Drew
Detwiler went 3-for-4.
The sticks
finally broke out Saturday in the 11-2 win over Pocatello. Wood River (11
hits) enjoyed a lucrative six-hit, seven-run third inning with Joe Paisley
delivering a two-run double.
Wood River
ace Ryne Reynoso (3-2) snapped his team’s four-game losing streak with
five innings of three-hit ball. He whiffed nine. Dylan McIlhenny mopped up
in relief and also contributed two hits to the attack, as did Tinker and
Detwiler.
Sunday’s
final game went into extra innings, nine in all, then Wood River lost 6-5
to Rifle (Colo.) in what was called an "international playoff."
Each team was given three outs to score with a runner on second. Wood
River couldn’t score, and Rifle tallied the winner on a sacrifice fly.
McIlhenny
threw the first four frames and Detwiler (1-1) did a good job with five
innings of relief. Tinker picked up another two hits.
Unfortunately
Ryne Reynoso, playing center field, injured his throwing arm cutting down
a Rifle runner at home plate and was forced to leave the game. The extent
of the injury was unknown Monday.
Wednesday,
visiting Wood River (3-4 league) dropped a 15-5 and 11-7 doubleheader to
the Burley Bobcats.
Host Burley
shelled Wolverine pitching for 29 hits in the doubleheader and beat Hailey
ace Ryne Reynoso in the nightcap. Kellen Chatterton had four of 13 Hailey
hits.
Tough stretch
continues
Coming up:
Wood River plays in the Donnelley Sports Twin Falls Invitational wood bat
tournament Thursday through Saturday, June 20-22 at Bruin Field in Twin
Falls.
Wood River
plays Blackfoot Thursday at 3:30 p.m. and then has two big games Friday—against
Mountain Home at 10:30 a.m. and Brigham City (Utah) at 3:30 p.m.
The
Hailey-Brigham City game has been the big one at the Twin Falls meet for
two straight years.
Last year,
Wood River outscored three opponents 33-1 but fell 4-1 to Brigham City and
settled for third place of eight teams. Two years ago Wood River’s Matt
Zachary no-hit Brigham City 10-0 in the title game.
Final games
of the eight-team tournament will be played Saturday.
It doesn’t
get any easier because Wood River visits arch-rival Buhl next Monday
night. Then, the 12-game road trip ends and Wood River hosts Pocatello
next Wednesday.