Wood River High School junior goalkeeper Madison Gove doesn't normally see a lot of action in her team's games. The tall and lanky keeper might see a shot now and then, but she mostly bides her time.
But Gove's time to shine finally arrived Thursday in the championship game of the Great Basin Conference tournament at Hailey's South Valley Complex soccer field.
It was Wood River's second overtime game against Twin Falls in three days, after the Wolverine girls' soccer program had previously played only two OT games in 13 years. The two match-ups, both won by Wood River, had hundreds of fans absolutely transfixed.
Gove blocked three of the four Twin Falls shots in the sudden-death penalty kick shootout and, combined with shootout goals by Teagen Palmer and Erin Murphy, top-seeded Wood River earned a 3-2 (2 OT, 2-0 kicks) win over the #2-seeded Twin Falls Bruins.
The outcome gave Wood River (15-2-1) its sixth consecutive Great Basin tournament championship and sent the Wolverines to this week's State 4A tournament in Caldwell with the top seed out of the Fourth District. Twin Falls (14-5-2) emerged as the second seed.
Wood River debuts at state Thursday, Oct. 22 at 11 a.m. against Kuna (15-4-2), a 3-0 winner over Blackfoot in Saturday's play-in game. Twin Falls has another reasonable draw in Sixth District champion Hillcrest (9-7-2) Thursday at 2 p.m.
The other two match-ups Thursday should be humdingers: Second-ranked Skyview of Nampa (15-3-1) vs. #3-ranked Century of Pocatello (17-2-1) at 11 a.m., and top-ranked defending champion Bishop Kelly of Boise (18-0-1, 38-2-1 two seasons) vs. northern Idaho champion Sandpoint (10-4-2) at 2 p.m.
Prior to Bishop Kelly winning last year and in 2007, only Sandpoint (2000-02 and 2004) and Century (2003 and 2005-06) had won State 4A titles since Idaho High School Activities Association sanctioning began.
Wood River, ranked fourth going into state, won the State 4A consolation trophy the past two years. A win over Kuna would put the Wolverines up against the Century-Skyview winner Friday at 2 p.m. Skyview was last year's state runner-up behind Bishop Kelly.
First-year Wood River coach Jenni Conrad felt that last week's two barnburners against a speedy Twin Falls team were good proving grounds going into state action.
"We are very excited to be going to state and feel our close games against Twin Falls were a good thing," she said after Thursday's shootout victory. "Having a slow first half and pulling it together in the second half showed this team has the will and found the way."
Indeed, Twin Falls out-shot Wood River 7-5 in Thursday's first half. The home team built its precarious 1-0 halftime lead only because sophomore defender Sloan Storey nailed a lovely free kick into the top of the net just one minute into the game, after Tanner Dredge was taken down outside the box.
Wood River was disappointed with its first-half play.
Junior Taylor Hayes said, "We came out flat in the first half. Coach (Conrad) asked us at halftime if we wanted to win. We just decided as a team that it was our house and that we didn't want to see Twin Falls again on Saturday. And we started to play together more."
Although Wood River out-shot Twin Falls 13-4 after half, the Bruins were able to finish and tallied two unanswered goals for a 2-1 lead on nice shots by Claire Goss, the second after a Erin Grubbs-Imhoff free kick.
To generate more offense, Conrad inserted young legs like sophomores Teagen Palmer, Nicole Roos and Erin Murphy up front along with leading scorer Dredge—and Wood River then applied relentless pressure on the Bruins goal.
Finally, after a free kick by Sloan Storey pushed the ball up the field with five minutes left in regulation, Palmer booted a lead pass out to Roos on the left flank. Tall and fast, Roos pounded down the left wing and launched a great shot that sailed into the net for a 2-2 tie.
Roos (6 goals) could have elected to center a pass to either Dredge or Palmer, two strikers with 125 career goals between them. Both were bearing down on the Bruins net. Instead, Roos seized the opportunity and made the most of it.
Afterwards, when asked if she had considered passing, Roos said, "If I hadn't taken the shot, I would always have wondered what might have happened if I had. I just had to go for it and got lucky."
She added, "We were low on energy in the first half and needed to pick it up in the second half. We did. We fought."
In the two 10-minute overtime "golden goal" periods, Gove made two excellent saves, the first on McKenzie Johnson of Twin Falls and the second on Grubbs-Imhoff. Wood River outshot Twin Falls 22-13 for the game including 4-2 in the OTs, but there was no scoring.
Wood River won the coin flip for the shootout and decided to go last. Denied a goal by the strong Twin Falls defense, Hailey junior striker Dredge (32 goals season, 85 career) patted keeper Gove on the back and Madison went out to the goal.
Gove dove to her left and blocked a shot by the most reliable Twin Falls scorer, Goss. Then Palmer (15 goals) punched a goal into the left hand corner. With Gove bouncing around at the goal line and making herself obvious, Twin Falls defender Stephanie Peck shot the second attempt over the net, no good. Murphy (2 goals) calmly rocketed a shot into the left corner for a 2-0 Hailey lead.
With time running out on Twin Falls, Gove made things tougher by swatting away a Grubbs-Imhoff shot with her left hand. Kaitana Martinez (15 goals) hit the crossbar for Wood River, a shot that would have won it, but Gove made sure of the victory by blocking the fourth and final Bruins shot, by Anne Kent.
Her effort kept Wood River unbeaten in its last 16 games since a 2-1 loss at Century Aug. 29. And this weekend at Caldwell, the Wolverines (220-55-25 in 16 seasons) will be making their 15th consecutive state tournament appearance.
