Wood River American Legion baseball coach Matt Nelson wanted his team to peak at the right time—and the Hailey boys rose to the challenge during last week's Area C "A" district tournament in Pocatello.
Nelson's squad, seeded seventh in the 12-team tournament and having lost five of its last six games entering the double elimination meet, got hot at the right time and battled all the way to Saturday's championship game against Blackfoot.
Ninth-seeded Blackfoot ultimately prevailed 8-4 in the title contest but Wood River got what it wanted out of three days of district action—solid, competitive baseball that proved Hailey belongs in this weekend's State "A" tournament to be held for the first time in its history in Hailey.
The Wood River team had received an automatic bid to the eight-team State "A" tournament by virtue of hosting the four-day meet at Founders Field in Hailey, but coach Nelson wanted the boys to earn their way into the tournament and that's just what happened.
Four opening-round state games will be played Friday, Aug. 3 at Founders Field starting at 9 a.m., 11:45 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Wood River will play the day's feature game at 5:15 p.m. against the #2-seeded Boise entry. Games continue Saturday and Sunday at Founders.
The championship contest is set for Monday, Aug. 6. Moscow and Mountain Home clashed in last year's State "A" title game on fields in Coeur d'Alene.
Wood River (21-18, 18-12 league) is making only its fourth appearance at the State Legion "A" tourney—and its first since 2000 when first-year Legion coach Nelson took a strong team to Lewiston. Other state trips were 1993 and 1994.
The second-place district tournament finish was only the fifth in the program's annals. Never winning, the Hailey squad also finished second at the Area C district tournament in 2000, 1994, 1993 and 1978.
Wood River wasn't considered a contender in this year's district meet. The overwhelming favorite was top-seeded Jerome (34-6, 28-2), nearly unbeatable during the season.
But red-hot Blackfoot stunned Jerome 14-3 in just six innings Thursday and the Tigers couldn't recover, eventually losing the third-place game to Bear Lake of Montpelier 8-7 in eight innings Saturday.
On Thursday, Wood River defeated #10-seeded Hillcrest of Idaho Falls by a score of 7-2 and then pulled a huge upset over the second-seeded Buhl Tribe (27-11, 22-8 league) by a score of 12-3. Erik Jacobson (3-1) got the pitching win and also stroked a double and homer in the 12-hit attack against the defending district champions from Buhl.
Normally Wood River's catcher, graduating senior Kenny Cardona got the pitching nod for Friday's all-important semi-final game against the #6-seeded Twin Falls Cowboys (28-18, 19-11 league). And Cardona was sensational, throwing a complete-game shutout in the 2-0 victory.
The official scorer credited Twin Falls with two hits, although Wood River scored those two hits as errors—meaning that Cardona threw a no-hitter in the Hailey book.
Having beaten Shelley 15-6, Jerome 14-3 and Bear Lake 17-9, Blackfoot carried a 15.3 runs per game tournament scoring average into Saturday's title game and got off to an 8-0 start against Wood River pitchers Pat Patterson and Jacobson. Wood River came back a little but couldn't get over the hump.
Although Wood River finished second, Bear Lake won the coin flip that substituted for playing an extra game. So the state seedings from southcentral Idaho are #1 Blackfoot, #2 Bear Lake and #3 Wood River.
