Life by nature is contradictory. For every good there is bad, and every right a wrong.
How you look at the Wood River baseball team's 11-3 loss to Minico on Tuesday depends on whether you see the glass as half empty, or half full.
Wolverine coach Lars Hovey prefers the latter.
"The way we looked at it going down there is Minico had to hold serve. The pressure was on them. We outhit them 11-8 and hit their two best pitchers which is a good thing to walk away with," Hovey remarked.
But the perpetually sunny Hovey was not walking around with his head in the clouds by any means.
"We went down there looking for some good baseball to be played and we didn't do the little things, like not walking their batters, hitting relays and cuts. Good base running. They took advantage of those things and it killed us."
Minico batted around in the first inning, scoring five runs, aided by four walks and two errors by the Wolverines. The Spartans were patient at the plate, as pitcher Steve Hansen (2-2) went to a full count on four of the nine batters he faced and threw at least four pitches to two others.
Up 6-2, Minico sent nine men to the plate in the fifth, tacking on four more runs to salt away the win. Tyler Theide (4 strikeouts) pitched the last three innings.
Tyson Reynoso was 3-for-4. Dylan Fullmer and Ben Molyneux tagged two hits each.
The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for the Wolverines (11-4 overall, 2-1 league), that the squad hopes to resume on Saturday, April 16 in a home doubleheader against Vallivue and Preston. Game times are 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. at Founder's Field in Hailey.