Wolverines bring
the heavy metal,
pound Buhl
Rise to #1 ranking with
16-10, 22-7 victories
By JEFF CORDES
Express Staff Writer
It was Black Tuesday for Buhl but a
glorious day for the Wood River Wolverines.
This spring’s first varsity baseball
renewal of one of southern Idaho’s best diamond rivalries was almost no contest.
Coach Lars Hovey’s Wolverines vaulted into
the #1 ranking among Idaho 3A schools with 16-10 and 22-7 victories over
previously unbeaten and last week’s #1 team Buhl.
Wood River showcased its bats and strong
pitching, though the Hailey defense was rusty and porous from a two-week layoff.
In contrast Buhl didn’t do much right—no gloves, no bats, little pitching.
In two sun-splashed games and 13 innings,
the Wolverines out-hit the Tribe 35-8. Few of the hits were flares. They were
mostly solid smacks and liners. Wood River cracked five homers to Buhl’s one in
two games.
Hailey’s 12th-year coach Hovey said, "I
don’t ever remember hitting the ball that hard and that consistently when we’ve
played at Buhl."
Buhl is usually the dominant team with the
bats when it plays on its home Clint Faux diamond, where it started the 2003
season with six straight wins and outscored foes 80-24.
Rarely has any Buhl team been beaten so
soundly as Tuesday. Tribe fielders committed 14 errors, seven a game, which
meant that 19 of the 38 Hailey runs were unearned.
But Wood River’s defense was hardly
stellar. The Wolverines committed six errors in the first game, which helped
turn a laugher—an early 11-0 Hailey lead—into a 13-9 game before Wood River put
it away.
The star of the first game, which counted
in the league standings, was Wood River senior pitching ace Ryne Reynoso.
Reynoso (2-1) retired the first 10 Tribe batters, had a no-hitter through four
innings and whiffed eight of the first 13.
Boston College-bound Reynoso (111 pitches)
tired in the fifth and ended up with five walks to go with nine strikeouts in
six frames. Reynoso was a terror at the plate with three hard hits, a three-run
homer and a team-high 5 RBI.
"I don’t see anyone touching Ryno once he
hits his stride," said Hovey.
The coach added, "We were kind of playing
on our heels in the infield and the outfield was a circus. Defense was our weak
link. If we could have closed out the game in the fifth we felt we could have
gotten Ryno out of there with 30 fewer pitches. Buhl got more aggressive with
the bats as the game went on."
So, despite 38 runs and 35 hits the
Sawtooth Central Idaho Conference twinbill wasn’t a total success for Hailey.
"Next time around we’ll be a little sharper," said Hovey.
Nonetheless Wood River (5-1-1 overall, 1-0
SCIC) was sharp enough to seize the early initiative in the four-team SCIC
pennant race over Buhl (6-2, 2-1). They’ll meet again in Wood River’s season
finale May 3.
Hovey will try to cobble together some
pitching for Thursday’s Founders Field home opener against the tough Jerome
Tigers. Jerome (5-2) is coming off an 8-7 road win over the Century Diamondbacks
Tuesday in Pocatello.
Sweep at Buhl
What looked in the early innings like a
righthanded pitching duel between hard-throwing Reynoso and Buhl senior ace Tim
Bourner turned into a 26-run, two-and-a-half hour potboiler.
Wood River capitalized on four Tribe
infield errors in the third and fourth innings to score five unearned runs.
Hovey thought the 5-0 lead might hold up, the way Reynoso was throwing early.
The game was young when Reynoso showed
signs of Wood River hitting to come. The lefthanded swinger positively killed a
liner to center. The ball was hit so hard that the Buhl outfielder didn’t know
whether to come in or go back. He should have dug a hole. It whizzed past him to
the fence. Reynoso wound up on third.
Bourner was still in the game, getting
tagged good, when Wood River batted around for the first of three times during
the doubleheader.
It was the fifth inning and Reynoso came
up with two outs and two aboard. He went the other way, down the left field
line, and the ball seemed to be still rising when it soared over the fence for a
three-run tater.
The 11-0 lead and Hailey hopes of a
five-inning run-rule outcome didn’t last long.
Reynoso allowed the first Buhl hit, a
single by John Puente, then he hit a batter and walked one—and Buhl’s Rob Walker
scorched a two-out, two-run double to finish the five-run Tribe uprising.
Two more Reynoso walks and two Wood River
errors helped Buhl score four more in the sixth, cutting its deficit to 13-9.
Paul Tinker (3 hits) restored order with a one-out solo homer in the seventh,
and left fielder Kellen Kinghorn (2 hits, 3 RBI) belted a two-run single.
Shortstop Drew Detwiler (2 hits, 3 runs,
5-for-11 with 6 runs scored in the doubleheader) relieved Reynoso in the seventh
and whiffed two batters.
"Drew is very solid for us," said Hovey.
Sophomore second sacker Brady Femling did
a good job from the #9 hole, reaching base his first four trips and scoring
three runs with two solid hits.
In the nightcap, senior designated hitter
Matt Conover, still on the mend from his knee injury, got a chance to play in
the field and showed full-time work helps his hitting as well.
Conover (4-for-4 with 5 runs scored)
belted a pair of two-run homers as Wood River outscored Buhl 22-7 and out-hit
the Tribe 20-5. The first five batters in the formidable Hailey line-up went
16-for-21 with 12 RBI.
Senior catcher Kellen Chatterton (4-for-4,
3 RBI) drilled a two-run homer in the third. Tinker (7-for-10 twinbill) had four
hits and drove home four. Detwiler added three hits from the leadoff position
and Dylan McIlhenny (3 RBI) had two hits.
Recovering from a shoulder injury, third
baseman Steve Durkin switched over and batted lefthanded for his last three
trips in the nightcap—and ripped a pair of safeties.
Not much went wrong for Wood River at the
plate.
And sophomore righthander Steve Hansen
(3-0) stayed unbeaten with an 84-pitch, five-inning stint. Hansen kept the Tribe
batters off balance and finished with six strikeouts. Detwiler relieved him in
the sixth and retired Buhl 1-2-3.
The game ended on the 10-run rule because
Wood River scored seven unearned runs in the sixth—Tinker’s two-run double doing
a lot of damage.
Left fielder Joe Paisley scored three runs
for Hailey.