First-year Wood River High School girls' soccer coach Jenni Conrad said her Wolverines (0-2-0) won't be satisfied with anything other than a victory when they travel to Jerome today, Wednesday.
Wood River, the five-time defending Great Basin Conference West champion, will open its 2009 GBC schedule against a Tiger squad (0-3-0) that has lost at Century 7-0, at Hillcrest 9-4 and at Mountain Home 7-3. Jerome has a talented goal scorer in the speedy Aubree Callen.
Meanwhile, the Wolverines have come up short on a pair of tough road assignments—falling at Skyview 2-0 Aug. 21 and by a 2-1 score to Century at Pocatello Saturday. Tanner Dredge scored a first-half goal, from Nicole Roos, at Century.
The Diamondbacks (5-0-1) controlled the play on their home field and got goals from Kallie Johns and Morgan Shaver to beat Wood River. Century's only blemish came on a 0-0 tie with Twin Falls, one of Wood River's new opponents in the GBC.
After three road games, Wood River debuts at home Saturday, Sept. 5 at 11 a.m. against Highland of Pocatello. The Wolverines split with Highland last season, winning 4-0 at home and losing 1-0 in Pocatello.
Long time coming for Cutthroat volleyball win
Making progress and learning the game are always good objectives for high school athletic teams—but nothing beats the feeling of winning.
Coach Reamy Goodwin's Community School volleyball team never had that feeling last season.
The extremely young Cutthroats, with four freshmen and two sophomores and nary a senior, went 0-15 and only once extended a best-of-five match to more than three games.
"Now we're a year older with about the same group of girls. We're going in the right direction," said eighth-year coach Goodwin Friday in assessing his 2009 Cutthroats.
That new Cutthroat edition on Thursday captured its first match victory by scores of 25-18, 25-16 over Twin Falls Christian Academy, a non-league match in Twin Falls.
"We played the game well and really out-persevered them, and that's something we couldn't have done last year," said Goodwin. "I was really excited and proud of them. It was a good start to the season."
Two seniors, outside hitters Morgan Pintler and Maggie Flood, are leading the new Cutthroats. Juniors are setter Julie Doane and middle hitter Natalie Goddard.
Sophomores are Meredith Pintler, Sophia Carkonen, Emily Gillespie, Barrett Brown, Isobel Pollock, Morgan Roudabush and Camille Bourret.
The Cutthroats (2-0, 1-0 league) also won at Murtaugh Monday—dropping the first game and winning the next three. They hosted another Northside Conference match Tuesday, Sept. 1 when Dietrich visited The Fish Tank.
Caulkins first to the finish at CSI
Wood River High School senior Chase Caulkins showed he's ready to rumble Friday on a hot, muggy day in Twin Falls.
Caulkins was first to the finish line among all boys in the Jerome Invitational 3.1-mile prep footrace at the College of Southern Idaho.
In the first event of the thinclad season, Caulkins (17:34) was two seconds faster than Twin Falls senior Alex Schenk (17:36). Andrew Pfeiffer finished 12th (19:23) and James Paris placed 16th (19:44).
No team scores were kept, but two-time reigning State 5A champ Twin Falls placed four runners in the top 10. Having dropped a class, Twin Falls leads a tough Great Basin 4A league that includes Jerome, Wood River and Burley.
Pocatello's Hannah McInturff of Century (20:01) paced the Jerome Invitational girls Friday. Hailey sophomore Tristin Bowers finished 11th (24:19) and junior Brooke Bowers ended 19th (25:46).
Wood River coach Monte Brothwell said, "Times were a little slow because of heat, but we had great results for the first meet. The girls ran without some of their top runners and placed fifth. And the boys ended up fourth as a team."
The Wolverines continue their seven-meet season Friday, Sept. 4 at the Minico Invitational at 4 p.m. at Lake Walcott near Rupert. The Wood River Invitational is Sept. 9.
Jerome Invitational boys: 1—Chase Caulkins 17:34. 12—Andrew Pfeiffer 19:23. 16—James Paris 19:44. 23—Rusty Williams 20:37. 34—Josh Arters 22:16. 36—Andres Morales 22:45. 41—Drew Deffe 23:44. 43—Fischer Lewis 24:00. 48—Zeb Glenn 24:47. 49—Nolan Arters 25:03. 54—Connor Hesselbacher 28:35.
Jerome Invitational girls: 1—Hannah McInturff (Century) 20:01. 11—Tristin Bowers 24:19. 19—Brooke Bowers 25:46. 30—Alison Town 28:04. 35—Dani McLaughlin 29:33. 45—Kaitlyn Landis 34:32. 47—Brooke Lawrence 36:15.
