The Wood River Wolverines won their second boys' basketball game of the season Saturday night using the same formula as they did when they upset the Bonneville Bees 50-46 Jan. 5 on the Hailey floor.
Defense was the key in Wood River's 33-28 non-league home win over Filer that snapped a three-game losing skid. But there were other factors.
Wood River (2-11, 0-3 league) built an early lead, played great defense throughout, withstood a rash of second-half turnovers and held on to defeat a favored rival. Filer (7-4) had beaten Wood River 60-55 in double overtime back on Dec. 3.
The defense was incredible. Wood River held Filer without a field goal for the first 3:33 of the first quarter, the first 3:52 of the second, the first 3:49 of the third and the first 2:06 of the fourth. Filer had 23 field goals in its earlier win. Saturday, the Wildcats had just 11 and didn't make a 3-pointer.
"Our defense was great against a very good offensive team that has some excellent seniors," said Wood River coach Fred Trenkle. "And we tried to shorten the game."
Trenkle added, "We made them work hard to get their shots, made them play a half-court game and kept a hand up to keep them away from 3-pointers. And we attacked their zone defense well."
This time, probably for the first time all season, Wood River got welcome offensive production from its front-court. The three top scorers—Reno Christino 12 points, Corbin Miniard 9 and Casey Lane 4—were all front-court players.
Miniard (6 rebounds) was very active in the first quarter with 4 points and 3 boards. Catching the ball in the air and laying it up in the same motion, Christino (5 boards) made a huge transition basket for a 30-25 Hailey lead with 1:20 left, on a great pass by Morgan Uhrig.
Although he didn't score, point guard Uhrig (3 assists) played an excellent floor game and helped Wood River consistently break the Filer press. The Wolverines limited their turnovers to 10 and out-rebounded Filer 20-18.
Dylan Fullmer and Brady Femling (3 boards, 3 assists) each scored 3 points and Craig Werley added 2 for Hailey.
Thursday night at Burley, the Wolverines were in the game for entire first half, but the Bobcats (6-5, 2-1 league) outscored Wood River 15-4 in the third and made the lead stand up for a 46-35 league win.
Femling scored 13 points, Uhrig 9, Christino 6, Miniard 2, Lane 2, Werley 1, Kyle Lubeck 1 and Ted Dankanyin 1.
Wood River hosts the Minico Spartans tonight, Wednesday in Hailey.
