First-year Wood River High School baseball coach Matt Nelson is hoping league opponents Minico, Jerome and Burley don't know a blipping thing about how well the Wolverines played Friday in Preston.
The Great Basin Conference West tournament opens Friday, May 5—and the last thing Wood River's opponents need to know is how the Wolverines beat up on Century 14-2 Friday and followed up with a great 7-4 win over 5A Highland Friday night.
It was a great day of fearless baseball, nourished by bus driver Karen Hunt's "score brownies," that players wolfed down and went on to score 21 runs in two games. "Karen said she wanted to see us score a lot of runs," Nelson said.
"Friday got me real excited about what we can do as a team once we get rolling," he added.
Wood River (6-12, 2-3 league) has enjoyed sporadic highlights this season, but Friday's debut at the third annual, eight-team Tony Hansen Memorial baseball tournament in Preston was something to write home about.
The Wolverines (12 hits) crushed Century of Pocatello with an eight-run first inning. Wood River sent 12 batters to the plate in the uprising and captured its second win of the season over the Diamondbacks.
Casey Hawkes (2 hits) started it with an RBI single, then game MVP Derek Abbott (3 hits, 3 runs) delivered a two-run double, Erik Jacobson added a two-run single and Morgan Uhrig (3 hits, 2 runs, 3 RBI) ripped a two-run double.
Starting pitcher Kenny Cardona (1-2) cruised to his first win of the season, allowing five hits and whiffing seven, with just two walks. The game ended after five on the 10-run rule.
Wood River's next opponent Friday was Pocatello's big school, Highland. The Rams had come into Twin Falls just two days before and handed the 5A Bruins their first conference loss by a 6-0 score. Could Wood River kill the giant?
It didn't look that way early.
Highland, batting first, jumped ahead 3-0 on a loud three-run homer into a stiff breeze by Rams clean-up hitter Tony Hunt off Wolverine righty starter Casey Hawkes.
But this was a game in which Wood River players executed the fundamentals about as well as they've done all season. They played small ball with bunts and sound base-running. They committed two errors, to Highland's six. They didn't make mental mistakes.
Wood River retrieved two runs in the home first, thanks to two Ram errors, a line single by third baseman Danny Kramer (2 hits), a perfect bunt hit by left fielder Cardona and a single by catcher Derek Abbott.
Hawkes threw 24 pitches in the first and saw the first two Rams get aboard in the visitor second on an infield error and a walk. Highland bunted the runners over. Then Wood River got a huge defensive spark.
Center fielder Morgan Uhrig caught a sacrifice fly for the second out and gunned the relay home to Abbott, who fired over to Kramer at third to double up the runner trying mistakenly to go from second to third on the throw home.
It was the first of several fine Wolverine defensive plays.
Trailing 4-2 in the third, Wood River tied it on Cardona's RBI double, his second hit, and two more Ram errors. The Hailey boys took their first lead 5-4 in the fourth on Uhrig's leadoff walk and a two-out RBI single by Kramer.
Pitcher Hawkes, having settled down nicely, was cruising. He didn't allow a hit in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings. He retired the 2-3-4 Ram batters on eight pitches in the fifth. Second baseman Drew Anderson turned a dandy double play for him in the sixth.
But he needed insurance.
Capitalizing on a dropped pop fly by the Ram catcher, leadoff batter Uhrig scorched the next pitch up the middle to open the sixth. Anderson beat out a bunt single and Uhrig alertly went all the way to third on the toss across the diamond. Jacobson ended the two-run rally with an RBI single.
And Hawkes (101 pitches, 5 K, 3 BB) turned off the Ram lights 1-2-3 in the seventh, with two strikeouts. It was his first pitching win of the season. MVP of the Highland game was shortstop Tyler Israel.
Wood River had a chance to make Saturday's championship game by beating Malad Saturday morning. Malad had beaten Century 7-6 and had lost to Highland 6-5 Friday. And the Wolverines got off to a 7-0 lead over the 2A Malad Dragons.
Hailey ace Pat Patterson (4-4) was pitching a gem before the Wolverines started falling apart with defensive and baserunning errors. Malad finally overcame Wood River 10-9 despite an excellent outing by MVP Uhrig, the left fielder.
Missing several seniors who left for the Senior Prom, Wood River dropped Saturday's third-place consolation game 17-3 in five innings to host Preston. 3A Bear Lake beat Filer 5-1, Rigby 10-7 and Preston 10-7 before knocking off Highland 6-5 in Saturday's championship.
The weekend put the Wolverines in a better frame of mind entering today's "Senior Night" game against the Minico Spartans. Game time is 4:30 p.m. today, Wednesday at Founders Field in Hailey.
League-leading Minico (18-5, 5-0 league), the reigning conference and State 4A champion, won six games by a combined 60-11 score in the last 10 days over Preston, Jerome, Pocatello and Burley before squandering a 6-0 lead and losing to 5A Twin Falls 8-7 on Friday.
Third-seeded Wood River opens the Great Basin tournament Friday, May 5 at 5 p.m. at #2-seeded Jerome (11-11, 3-2).