Wood River High School baseball players will have to wait until next week's Great Basin Conference West tournament to see if they can make a breakthrough—and turn around an up-and-down season.
The Jerome Tigers kept Wood River winless in league action Tuesday with a 7-5 triumph at Hailey's Founders Field. It was a winnable game for coach Matt Nelson's Wolverines, but the Tigers just got the job done a little better.
"It's been frustrating. We've been hitting the ball hard but we just haven't caught the break we need," Nelson said.
After out-hitting the Tigers 12-8 but leaving 14 runners on base Monday in a 9-2 loss at Jerome, Wood River played Jerome evenly throughout Tuesday's game and made a nice rally from a 5-2 deficit. Greg Wakefield (1-1) pitched into the sixth inning but was victimized by three unearned Tiger runs in the third.
Trent Seamons delivered an RBI single in the first and Wakefield's RBI bouncing ball gave Wood River a 2-1 lead in the second, after a Pat Patterson single. In the home fifth, Tyler Israel (2 hits) singled, Keven Abbott (2 hits) ripped an RBI double and Seamons added a run-scoring double.
But Jerome tacked on two runs in the sixth for a 7-4 lead and Wood River could only respond with one in the home half. Wakefield added two hits to Wood River's 10-hit attack. Starting catcher Zak Sjoberg and Sean Bunce handled the catching duties for Hailey.
Today, Wood River returns to Preston for the fifth annual Tony Hansen tournament, hoping for a better effort than last April's 0-3 tournament visit to southeastern Idaho during which the Wolverines were outscored 32-6. But the bracketing doesn't favor Wood River.
Wood River opens today at 3 p.m. against two-time defending State 3A high school baseball king Bear Lake of Montpelier. Coach Craig Culver's Bears added to their trophy case by winning the State American Legion title last August in Hailey and earning the Northwest Legion "A" regional title in Alaska.
Sent home from the Preston tournament by Bear Lake 11-1 in 2007, Wood River hopes to surprise the Bears today. "A win over Bear Lake would give us a huge boost for the rest of the season," Nelson said.
Wood River plays Rigby today at 5 p.m. and goes against the other squad in its four-team pool, Highland of Pocatello, Saturday at 12:45 p.m. The other pool has Jerome, Preston, American Falls and Logan, Utah. Final games are at 3 p.m.
After the Preston tournament, Nelson is looking forward to three productive days of practice before #4-seeded Wood River (6-14, 0-6) opens the Great Basin West tourney Thursday, May 1 against defending league champ Minico (18-1, 6-0 league), in Rupert.
"I've told the kids, if we're going to be the best, we've got to beat the best," said Nelson about going up against 2007 State 4A runner-up Minico.
Last year's league runner-up and state qualifier Jerome (11-8, 3-3) and Burley (7-10, 3-3) play the other first-round Great Basin game next Thursday.
