It looks like defense is the highway that the Burley Bobcats want to travel in order to return to the top of the heap in the Great Basin Conference West girls' basketball battles.
Burley, undersized but fully capable of playing a full 32 minutes of intense basketball for 17th-year coach Gordon Kerbs, throttled the upstart Wood River Wolverines 39-30 Wednesday in a game that really wasn't that close.
Wood River never found an answer for Burley's 5-10 junior post Teresa Wayment (a game-high 17 points, 9 rebounds). Wayment picked up the scoring pace for senior point guard Kassi Kerbs, who had an off-shooting night and still had 15.
The Bobcats (11-4, 3-1 league) were State 4A champions in 2007 before being dethroned as Great Basin kings by Jerome last winter. This season Burley is behind #1-ranked Jerome (12-3, 2-1) once again but is hoping that Minico (7-7, 3-1) knocks off host Jerome Friday.
The interior defense in Burley's man-to-man was almost impenetrable. Senior Carli Parish's smothering defense neutralized Wood River's freshman leading scorer Kaitana Martinez. The result? Wood River had only three field goals through nearly four quarters.
Martinez (12 points, 3 rebounds) was frustrated all night and scored 5 of her points in the final three minutes.
Turnovers (21) also hurt Wood River but free-throw shooting (11-for-15) was solid, led by freshman Cheyanne Swanson (4-for-4 from the line, plus 3 rebounds off the bench). Other contributors were Alex Lindbloom (5 points, 2 boards), Grace Lagodich (4 points, 2 rebounds), Monica Garceau (6 rebounds), Sam Engel (2 points, 2 boards), Angela Coleman (3 boards) and Taylor Hayes (2 points, 2 rebounds).
Wood River (4-10, 0-5 league) hosts Skyline of Idaho Falls (5-8) today, Friday, and goes to Jerome Tuesday. Next Thursday, the Buhl Tribe arrives.
Boys fall 64-32 to Jerome
The Wood River High School boys' varsity (1-8, 0-1 league) was no match for the #3-ranked Jerome Tigers (10-2, 1-0) in the first Great Basin Conference West boys' game of the 2009 season Tuesday in Hailey.
Jerome raced to a 34-15 halftime lead and doubled up the host Wolverines 64-32. Greg Wakefield (10 points), Michale Brunker (6) and Juan Martinez (5) led Wood River, which dropped its fifth straight game.
Wood River played Filer (5-2) Thursday and plays host to Burley (4-7, 0-0) in GBW action Wednesday, Jan. 21 in Hailey.
