The Wood River girls' basketball team was not suffering any illusions going into Tuesday's game against the Hillcrest Knights.
"We knew it was a tough game going in," coach Brent Carnduff remarked.
Ranked the #1 team in the state in the 4A division, the Knights were looking to cap an undefeated regular season with their 20th win over a Hailey squad they beat 59-36 in November.
Mission accomplished for the Knights. On Senior Night, Hillcrest bagged the game 63-26.
Carnduff said he liked how his team started. The Wolverines hung with the Knights in the opening quarter and trailed by seven, 16-9 at the buzzer.
Carnduff remarked, "Hillcrest has a really strong press and we handled the pressure really, really well in the first quarter. The second quarter absolutely killed us."
The Knights outscored Wood River 25-3 in the second frame.
"They took advantage of our turnovers and hit their shots, Carnduff remarked.
Wood River regained its composure in the fourth frame, outscoring the Knights 9-6.
"We set a goal going into the fourth that we were going to score more than 25 and outscore them and we did,"
Carnduff said.
Senior Syringa Stark scored 10 points. Lauren Morgenthaler and Jamie Stone posted five points apiece. Also—Laura Johnson 2, Alexa Alberdi 2, Kristin Miniard 1, Hannah Ward 1.
The Wolverines (3-14, 1-5 league) capped the regular season at Century of Pocatello last night.
The 4A Great Basin Conference West tournament opens on Tuesday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. Fourth-seeded Wood River (3-14, 1-5 league) will open up against #1-seeded Minico (15-2, 6-0 league) in the Rupert gym.
Third-seeded Jerome (9-8, 1-5) will visit #2 Burley in the other district game. Second-round games will be played Thursday, Feb. 3, with the higher seeded team hosting.
