Wednesday — February 11, 2004

Filer’s shooting
silences WR’s crowd

Boys look ahead to SCIC tourney

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By JEFF CORDES
Express Staff Writer

The balloons are never really waiting in the rafters for a Wood River High School boys’ basketball celebration, but the stage was definitely set for a successful evening Friday on "Senior Night" in Hailey.

Nearly 1,000 fans packed the stands—biggest crowd for a Wood River basketball game in 13 years. The hoopla in the new gym included a big raffle, dueling drummers at half-time, and salutes to seniors and parents.

Kory Ott finished with 11 points and 6 rebounds against Filer. Express photo by David N. Seelig

Coached by Fred Trenkle, the resurgent Wolverines (6-11, 4-5 league) were riding a three-game winning streak and poised to finally break into the Sawtooth Central Idaho Conference elite with an entirely-possible league victory over the Filer Wildcats.

But a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the bank against a Wildcat squad that had lost four of five games coming into Friday’s contest.

Filer (5-11, 3-5), shooting the lights out, opened up an early lead, drilled two clutch 3-pointers just before halftime and stretched its game-long lead into a 52-38 victory.

Jason Hofman (11.5 ppg) answered the call with 13 points and 10 rebounds, and fellow senior Kory Ott (7.2 ppg) chipped in 11 points and 6 boards. But Wood River (52% free throws season) shot a woeful 7-for-20 at the stripe and didn’t hit much of anything from outside all night.

Trenkle said, "We played real hard. We just struggled with our scoring—and Filer didn’t miss anything. You’ve got to make the shots you get. It wasn’t for a lack of effort, just a lack of putting the ball in the basket."

Making the loss more painful for Wood River (3-6 home, 3-5 away) was the fact that Filer’s win put the SCIC tournament ball in the Wildcat court, you might say.

With a win Wood River would have clinched the third seed and a home game in the six-team SCIC tournament starting Feb. 17. Their SCIC fate was in their own hands.

Instead, "we left the door wide open," for Filer to take Wood River’s place as the third seed, Trenkle said.

Several circumstances could still tip the scale in Wood River’s behalf because of the still-undetermined "who?" (which team Wood River will play in the SCIC first round) and the "where?" (the location of the game, higher seeds having the homecourt).

But the main game Trenkle and his staff will be watching closely is Gooding’s home contest against Filer Thursday.

Host Filer beat Gooding by 31 points Jan. 24, but a Senator upset would give Wood River the third seed. Gooding (4-15, 1-8) has won two straight after a 12-game losing streak.

"It’s all in Gooding right now," said Trenkle about Wood River’s best chance to get next week’s home game.

One other favorable scenario in the case Filer beats Gooding: If Wood River wins at Kimberly Thursday in Hailey’s regular-season finale and Filer loses at home to Kimberly Friday, Wood River finishes 5-5 in league and Filer ends up at 4-6 for fourth seed.

In that case, #3 Wood River would host #4 Filer next Tuesday.

The final scenario involves Filer losses in the final two Wildcat games, which would drop Filer to the fifth seed and bring the Buhl Tribe—twice winners over Filer—back to Hailey for the first round next week. Wood River has beaten Buhl (4-13, 3-6) twice.

An old basketball chestnut, voiced by many coaches for motivation, goes something like this: It’s pretty tough to beat the same team three times in a season. So, if you’ve lost to a team twice, you could very well sneak up on them and capture the third meeting.

Trenkle, with the thick skin of many winters, doesn’t really buy into that theory.

"I’d much rather have beaten a team twice going into the tournament instead of having lost to them twice," he said with a laugh, referring to Filer’s 61-44 and 52-38 league wins over the Wolverines.

The SCIC tourney will be played at the home sites of high seeds Feb. 17 and 19, then finish up at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls Monday through Wednesday, Feb. 23-25.

Filer, with five juniors and four seniors, isn’t anything approaching a powerhouse. The Wildcats average 50.0 ppg, compared to Wood River’s 46.2 ppg. Filer has won two games in a row only once this season.

But the ‘Cats, who qualified for the state tournament last year with a 55-54 do-or-die win over Kimberly at CSI in Twin Falls, have shot extremely well against Hailey this winter.

Take, for instance, junior David Ryan (5.6 ppg), who tallied 8 of Filer’s 9 points in the first quarter against Wood River Friday. Ryan finished with a game-high and season-high 15 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists.

Filer’s deft passes kept finding seams in the Wood River zone, setting up a series of 15-footers that took the Hailey crowd out of the game before they had a chance to get warmed up.

In contrast, the Wolverines didn’t hit an outside shot for 24 minutes—from the point Scott Bohrer gave the Hailey team an early 4-2 lead with a 15-footer, until Brady Femling cut a 13-point Bulldog lead to 10 with a 3-pointer with 5:42 left in the fourth.

As for the rest of the SCIC, top-seeded defending champion Declo (14-2, 8-0) is breezing along with a 12-game winning streak and will tangle with Gooding in the first round of the SCIC tournament next week. Declo hosted Kimberly (9-6, 6-1) Tuesday.

"We’ll try some different things if we play them again," said Trenkle.

WR 50-46 over Gooding: Hofman 14 points, Selcho 13, Femling 7, Ott 6, Ward 4, Pruett 2, Paisley 2, Bohrer 2. Rebounds (38)—Selcho 9, Ott 9, Hofman 8, Ward 4, Paisley 3. Steals—Ward 3, Bohrer 2. Assists—Femling 5, Bohrer 3. Blocked shots—Hofman 4. 3-pointers—Femling 1.

Offense—46.2 ppg. Defense—51.7 ppg. Free throws—WR 166-319 (52%). Opposition—142-232 (61%).

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WOLVERINE NOTES—The last time Wood River swept its season series from Jerome and Buhl was in 1992, which happened to be Wood River’s last winning season, 15-8 for coach Norm Cook. Brian Homer, David Morgan, Travis Williams and Sean Johnson were seniors on that team, which averaged 62.7 ppg and shared the SCIC conference title with Burley…..The biggest Wolverine crowd prior to last Friday was back on Jan. 18, 1991, when Wood River hosted Jerome in the week of the Gulf War and lost in a thriller 65-62. The Wolverines (18-8) went on to beat Jerome twice for the district title, 84-82 in four overtimes and 40-35, both games at CSI, then went on to drop close games to Preston and Bonners Ferry in the state tournament….Craig Werley won $100 in Friday’s student raffle.

Wood River teams have made seven trips to the state tournament—in 1991, 1988, 1981, 1975, 1974, 1970 and 1969—and Trenkle has coached two of those teams, in 1974 and 1975. Phil Homer coached the 1970 state qualifier. In Friday’s halftime ceremony, Trenkle and Homer accepted banners representing Wood River’s early state basketball trips, and those banners will be the first to be hung in the new gym, according to athletic director Ron Martinez.

 

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