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Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 
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Copyright © 2002 Express Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 


For the week of April 9 - 15, 2003

Sports

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.

 

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