Wednesday — February 18, 2004

WR boys shock Kimberly 62-58, earn home game

SCIC tourney opens, state up for grabs

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Wood River took care of business on the road, got a break from this year’s "Senior Night" curse and thus earned a home game in this week’s Sawtooth Central Idaho Conference boys’ prep basketball tournament.

"We played pretty well this week," said Wolverine boys’ varsity basketball coach Fred Trenkle last Friday, with some understatement.

On Thursday, visiting Wood River jumped out to a 19-11 lead and held on to beat the favored Kimberly Bulldogs 62-58 with junior point guard Brady Femling (a season-high 14 points) hitting 8-for-8 from the free throw line down the homestretch.

Wood River was 13-for-20 at the line in the fourth quarter and kept its turnovers to a minimum all game.

It was Wood River’s first victory over Kimberly in four years—and the first at Kimberly in 16 years. Kory Ott was immense on the boards with 15 rebounds, and sturdy reserve Riley Neff added a season-best 13 points.

"We killed Kimberly on the boards. Kory was pulling down everything. And Riley must have had six offensive boards," said Trenkle. "People just stepped up. We got down-and-dirty, competed our butts off and played an unbelievable game."

The huge win, Wood River’s first without leading scorer Jason Hofman (ankle injury), came two days after the Wolverines pulled off a 66-60 overtime shocker over Valley at Hazelton.

It was the first time since 1988, when A-2 Player of the Year Brad Jaques was a senior, that a Wood River team won on the road at Kimberly and Valley in the same season.

Trenkle said, "If we play, we can beat anyone."

Not only did Wood River take care of its own business by winning for the fifth time in six games, the Wolverines (8-11, 5-5 SCIC) put the pressure on the Filer Wildcats in the race for the third and fourth tourney seeds.

"We put a little pressure back on Filer and forced them to win two games," said Trenkle.

Filer needed to win both its SCIC games last week in order to grab the tournament third seed and home court advantage away from Wood River. The Wildcats won Thursday, 55-47 at Gooding, but they fell at home 80-72 in overtime to a fired-up Kimberly squad Friday night.

It meant five of the six SCIC teams lost on their "Senior Nights," this year, the exception top-seeded Declo, which beat Buhl 59-34 Thursday.

And it meant that Wood River hosted Filer (6-12, 4-6 SCIC) Tuesday night in Hailey in the first round of the SCIC tournament. Although Filer shot extremely well in 17-point and 14-point wins over Wood River, the upstart Wolverines were looking for a different result in the tournament.

"I don’t believe Filer is better than we are," said Trenkle, relishing Tuesday’s first-round rematch. "Our kids have grown up a lot and learned how to fight through adversity. We’re played with great enthusiasm lately, and we feel good about ourselves."

Wood River had revenge in mind. In last year’s SCIC tourney, host Filer routed Wood River 67-41 in the first round, and the Wolverines went two-and-out with a 19-point loss to Buhl.

Declo (15-3, 9-1) hosted #6-seeded Gooding (4-16, 1-9) in another first-round game Tuesday, while #2-seeded Kimberly (11-7, 8-2) tangled with #5-seeded Buhl (4-14, 3-7). Last year, Declo beat Kimberly 78-53 for the title, then Filer eliminated Kimberly 55-54 for the other SCIC state berth.

Barring upsets, a Wood River win over Filer Tuesday night would put the Wolverines up against Kimberly in the tournament semi-final Monday, Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. at the College of Southern Idaho gym in Twin Falls.

Check the Friday Mountain Express for a WR-Filer game recap.

But for most of last weekend, Wood River savored its upset triumph over Kimberly. "The kids have come a mile," said Trenkle, a Hall of Fame coach for the CSI Golden Eagles who won a NJCAA national title in 1987.

Trenkle added, "We changed up some of our defense, zoned more and made it a little less predictable. We rotated our players quicker and kept them fresher. It felt a lot like a CSI game. We played a lot of people there and built our depth that way."

Wood River has been faced with full-court pressure all season. At Kimberly, instead of breaking the press and setting up the halfcourt offense, Wood River kept going at the hole.

"Every time we went through we took it to the basket. We said—we’re laying it on the line tonight. Everybody attacked the boards," said Trenkle. Results from Kimberly:

WR 62-58 over Kimberly: Brady Femling 14 points, Riley Neff 13, Jeremy Selcho 8, Kory Ott 7, Scott Bohrer 7, Brian Ward 6, Joe Paisley 4, Dylan Fuller 3. Rebounds—Ott 15. 3-pointers—Femling 2, Fullmer 1, Ward 1, Bohrer 1.

Offense—48.1 ppg. Defense—52.5 ppg. Free throws—WR 198-372 (53%). Opposition—164-270 (61%). Top individual scorers—Jason Hofman 11.9 ppg, Jeremy Selcho 7.4, Kory Ott 7.3, Brady Femling 5.8, Scott Bohrer 4.9.

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