Never in the two-year head coaching reign of John Radford has the Wood River High School boys' varsity basketball team scored as many points as Wednesday night, on the road in Idaho Falls, no less.
Senior Matt Staskiewicz came alive in the fourth quarter, scoring 14 of his game-high 18 points to lift Wood River past Hillcrest 72-57 in non-conference 4A action. The Wolverines (5-10, 0-4 league) tallied 27 points in the decisive fourth period.
Capturing its first 4A win of the season at Hillcrest (5-10), Wood River now averages 44.0 ppg this season and was 46.2 with a single game-best 65 points last season. The Hailey boys, winning for the third time in five games, got plenty of scoring balance and strong free throw shooting (16-for-19) at Idaho Falls.
Michale Brunker (two 3-pointers) and Brian Tidwell scored 12 points apiece, Ross Parsons had 9, Greg Wakefield 9, Alberto Vazquez 6 and Pat Patterson 6. Hillcrest drilled seven 3-pointers led by Justin Coffin (16 points with three 3-pointers).
Burley (15-0, 2-0), winner of 35 straight games, hosted #4-ranked Jerome (10-4, 2-1) on Thursday and visits #3-ranked Minico (10-4, 2-1) in Rupert on Wednesday, Jan. 30. Wood River hosts Minico today at the high school in Hailey.
Blue Devils nip Cutthroats
Trailing 19-17 at halftime to a fired-up Community School team, the #4-seeded Dietrich Blue Devils (14-7) outpointed the #5-seeded Cutthroats 19-9 in the third quarter and captured a 48-39 win in the first round of the 2008 Northside 1A Sub-District girls' basketball tournament at Shoshone's gym Wednesday night.
Senior Jessie Curran (10.3 ppg) matched her season best with 18 points including four 3-pointers for the Cutthroats (3-11). Senior Caroline Fairchild added 6 points and junior Jesse Dill piled up 19 for Dietrich.
Dietrich moved on to play the defending State 1A champion Richfield Tigers (18-2) Monday, Jan. 28, at 6 p.m. while #2-seeded Carey (10-6) clashes with #3 Shoshone (9-12) Monday at 7:30 p.m. Shoshone defeated #6 Camas County 53-29 in Wednesday's other first-round game. The Community School waits until Wednesday, Jan. 30, when the Fish meet the loser of Carey-Shoshone at 6 p.m., also at Shoshone.
