No question about it, the Wood River High School baseball team broke out its bats and swung pretty well last weekend during a three-game Great Basin Conference series with the tough Minico Spartans.
Unfortunately for Wood River, four-time defending Great Basin champ and reigning State 4A king Minico was on the same hitting train. And Minico swept the 68-run series by scores of 19-10, 14-12 and 9-4.
Coach Matt Nelson's Wolverines (3-12, 2-7 league) used eight different pitchers over three games and Minico (16-6, 7-2) tossed five. No one seemed to get anyone out on a consistent basis—and 28 errors for the two teams added fuel to the fire.
Although Wood River is scoring at a clip of 6.6 runs per game, up a run over last year, the Wolverines are yielding 10.0, up over two runs from last spring. And the Hailey squad has allowed 11.8 runs a game in its eight-game losing skid.
Hitting stars for Wood River in Saturday's back-and-forth 14-12 opener on the Rupert diamond included Jimmy Hague (4 hits, 2 doubles, 5 RBI) and Keven Abbott (3 hits, HR, double, 3 RBI). Alex Padilla had an extra-base hit in each game.
Despite the outcome, Hailey's hitting improved a ton over last year, when Minico swept Wood River in three games including two shutouts and outscored WRHS 37-7.
Nelson's squad tried to get back on the winning track Tuesday with a home non-league game against Buhl (11-4) at Hailey's Founders Field. The Tribe had their eight-game win streak snapped 5-4 by Mountain Home in Buhl Saturday. Host Buhl nipped Wood River 7-6 March 26.
Wood River visits league-leading Twin Falls (17-3, 8-1) Thursday, April 22 and hosts Twin Friday for a Founders twinbill starting at 3:30 p.m.
And there are two other GBC series this weekend as the countdown begins for the league tournament starting Tuesday, May 4.
Coming off their series win over Burley, the Jerome Tigers (9-9, 6-3) go against Minico this weekend. Burley (8-13, 4-5) meets Canyon Ridge (2-16, 0-9), which dropped its three games to Twin Falls last weekend by scores of 10-0, 13-1 and 17-0.
Wood River senior infielder Juan Martinez fields a grounder during his team’s Founders Field game with Burley April 10. Photo by David N. Seelig
