The Wood River High School tennis and golf teams continued to enjoy spring season success last week—and the Wolverine baseball and softball teams looked ahead to the upcoming district tournaments.
In Fifth District high school rodeo, the local cowgirls and pokes wrapped up last weekend's Jerome rodeo and looked ahead to a weekend off before the next whistle-stop—at Shoshone's arena May 7-8.
League champ Twin Falls makes short work of WRHS
There wasn't much to brag about for the Wood River High School softball team during its three-game Great Basin Conference series with the mighty Twin Falls Bruins April 23-24.
Twin Falls (19-4, 12-0) clinched the regular-season GBC championship with a 16-0, 13-3 and 14-2 sweep of Wood River (6-9, 3-4 league). The Bruins outscored Wood River 43-5 and, because of the 15-run and 10-run rules, the teams played only 15 of a possible 21 innings.
"Not really much good happened," said Wood River coach Dale Martin. "We didn't hit very well or play good defense. Twin Falls is the class of the district as their record shows."
But here's one good thing that happened for Wood River (15 errors in 3 games) during a three-game series when the Wolverines were out-hit 35-12:
Madison Gove, a junior, broke up a no-hitter with a great at-bat against Twin Falls ace pitcher Jaquelyn Corr.
It happened Friday afternoon at South Valley Sports Complex softball field in Hailey. Twin Falls. Corr (82 pitches, 3 BB, 9 K) had mystified the Wolverine batters until lefty-hitting Gove came up in the third inning. Gove fouled off five straight pitches before ripping an infield single off the glove of Twin Falls second baseman Brianna Bishop.
That was Wood River's only hit in a 16-0 four-inning loss that started poorly with a 10-run Twin Falls first. Bishop (4 hits, 2 doubles, 4 RBI) led the 14-hit Bruins attack off of Ali Levy (5-5) and reliever Gove.
In Friday's nightcap of the twinbill, Twin Falls broke open a tight 2-1 game with a seven-run third and prevailed 13-3. The winning pitcher was Bishop. Alex Lindbloom (3-for-6 series) had two hits and two RBI while Gove added a double and Rachel Maier and Josie Dawson (RBI) each had singles.
Saturday in Twin Falls, pitcher Corr (6 K) was a Wolverine killer again with a four-hitter in the 15-3 five-inning victory. Sydney Tidwell (2 hits), Lindbloom and Haylee Thompson all hit safely.
Next, Wood River tackles the second-place GBC team when the Canyon Ridge Riverhawks (19-5, 9-3) arrive in Hailey Friday, April 30 for a 4:30 p.m. game. Canyon Ridge swept Burley (0-18, 0-10) by scores of 11-0, 14-1 and 13-5 last weekend.
The Jerome Tigers (10-11, 6-4) and Minico (2-16, 1-9) played a three-game series last weekend, Jerome winning 9-0 at home Friday and Minico taking a 6-5 victory in Saturday's rematch in Rupert. Jerome won the nightcap 9-8 and played Wood River in Hailey Tuesday, April 27 for two games.
Wood River hosts Kimberly, May 3 for a 4 p.m. single game on the Hailey field, then the Wolverines have a three-game series with Burley May 6-7 prior to the May 10 conference tournament. "Senior Night" will take place during the home finale on Friday, May 7.
Baseball team tries to recapture its mojo
Battered around by the Twin Falls Bruins during a three-game series last weekend, the Wood River High School baseball team (3-16) has one goal and one goal only this week.
The Wolverines want to sweep the Canyon Ridge Riverhawks in a season-ending Great Basin Conference series that opens Thursday, April 29 with a single game in Twin Falls.
Wood River will then entertain Canyon Ridge Friday, April 30 for a 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. doubleheader—with the Wolverine "Senior Night" festivities to be held before the 5 p.m. doubleheader nightcap game.
Coach Matt Nelson said, "Our confidence is way down but if we could have a good series against Canyon Ridge and sweep them, we could take a nice little winning streak into next week's league tourney."
Wood River (2-10 league) will be facing off against a Riverhawks squad (2-19. 0-12 league) that dropped all of its three games to Burley by scores of 14-4, 18-4 and 20-8 last weekend.
One victory in the upcoming three games will assure Wood River of the fifth seed in the six-team GBC tourney starting Tuesday, May 4. Twin Falls (20-3, 11-1) is likely to have the top seed in next week's face-off.
Nelson said, "We'd like to end the season on a good note and get our confidence back."
Wood River certainly saw enough of Twin Falls last week, losing 24-4 and 16-0 in Friday's league doubleheader on the Founders Field diamond in Hailey, then dropping Saturday's single game 11-0 in Twin Falls. All three were five-inning games by the run rule.
Twin Falls pitcher Heath Stewart tossed a five-inning perfect game against Wood River Saturday. Twin Falls needs one win over Jerome (11-10, 8-4) Thursday or Friday of this week to wrap up the regular season Great Basin title.
Otherwise, the 2-3-4 positions in the league rankings are up in the air—with Minico (17-8, 8-4) and Burley (12-13, 7-5) battling it out in a home-and-home three-gamer Thursday and Friday in Cassia County. Jerome won its series with Minico two games to one last weekend to force the logjam.
Prep golfers persevere in driving rain
It was amazing that anyone shot as well as they did Thursday when the 18-school, 20-team Falls Classic prep tournament for 5A through 3A golfers was staged on a soggy Sand Creek Golf Course in Idaho Falls.
Steady rain and cold temperatures tested 100 golfers on their 18-hole tours.
Wood River High School boys' coach Bill Petzke said, "It was pretty much a downpour the whole time."
Nevertheless, Wood River (316) persevered and ended up in third place just nine strokes behind meet winner Twin Falls (307) when the scores of each team's top four golfers were tabulated. In second place was 5A Skyline of Idaho Falls (315).
Wood River junior Davis Hague (74) had an outstanding round and tied for second place in the individual medalist race. Posting the top score was Canyon Ridge's Sawyer McMillen (71). Petzke said, "Davis Hague played up to his potential. Our boys did well as a group and individually."
Other Wolverine scores at Sand Creek were Crockett Stearns 80, Jonathan Hobbs 81, Chance McCroskey 81 and Ian Murphy 88.
Cowpokes finish up Jerome rodeo stop
The Fifth District high school rodeo at Jerome last weekend is in the books, and the cowboys and cowgirls will now take a weekend off before resuming the five-rodeo spring circuit May 7-8 at Shoshone.
Reigning Fifth District all-around girls' champ Haillie Taylor of Hailey dropped a spot in the girls' overall standings after two rodeos—from fourth to fifth place. She didn't have a bad weekend at Jerome. Other cowgirls just had better ones.
King Hill's Darby Fox gained 72 points over two performances to shoot all the way up from eighth place to second with 103 points, behind leader Valene Lickley of Jerome (110).
Fox placed 1-2 in the two barrel racing go-rounds, and won breakaway, goat tying and pole bending go-rounds. Lickley still leads the barrel racing and breakaway ranks, but she picked up only 47 points at Jerome compared to Fox's 72.
Still, Taylor of the Wood River Rodeo Club had some things to brag about. She placed second and fourth in polebending and currently leads the season standings 26-24 over Fox. In Friday's first rodeo, she and team roping partner Latner Straley placed second with an 18.23-second time.
Taylor was third in Friday's barrel racing at 17.917 seconds, but she lost five more seconds in Saturday's barrels and didn't pick up any points. She placed seventh in Friday's goat tying for four additional points.
Carey High School's Taylor Castle made some inroads at Jerome. She placed seventh in Friday's polebending go-round at 23.139 seconds and 10th in Saturday's barrel racing at 18.889 seconds—good enough for five weekend points that put Castle in the overall rankings.
Danielle Hennefer of Carey (barrels, pole bending) and Danielle Williams of Fairfield (barrels, pole bending) also competed last weekend.
The boys' overall leader is a rookie, Jared Parke of Gooding with 60 points. He moved from third place to first place with a 35-point weekend—winning a pair of team roping go-rounds with partner Kade Gill of Gooding at 9.80 and 9.75 seconds. Gill is second in overall with 56.
Tennis team breezes past Twin Falls 11-1
Wood River High School's tennis team stayed unbeaten in dual matches this season Friday with an 11-1 home Great Basin Conference dual meet victory over Twin Falls.
The Wolverines (8-0 dual matches, 6-0 league) swept singles and dropped only the #1 boys' doubles. All 12 matches were settled in straight sets on the Hailey courts.
Wood River has dominated its eight dual match opponents—winning its matches by a combined 89-7 score counting boys and girls.
The Wolverines are off to Boise for the Capital Invitational April 30-May 1. Results from Friday's home meet against Twin Falls:
Wood River 11, Twin Falls 1
Boys' singles: #1—Karl Wilander (WR) 6-1, 6-2 over Dallas Hunt (TF). #2—Jordan Niedrich (WR) 6-0, 6-2 over Mike Zitterkopf (TF). #3—Josh Morell (WR) 6-1, 6-0 over Ryan Algate (TF).
Girls' singles: #1—Ellen Davis (WR) 6-4, 6-2 over Karen Olsen (TF). #2—Sloan Storey (WR) 6-2, 6-1 over Hayley Hutchinson (TF). #3—Lily Richards (WR) 6-2, 6-4 over Brooke Wood (TF).
Boys' doubles: #1—Andrew Bortz and Daniel Olsen (TF) 6-3, 6-4 over Brendan Freund and R.J. Forgeon (WR). #2—Gardner Cord and Bryan Donoso (WR) 7-5, 6-4 over Nathan Algar and Chris Slette (TF).
Girls' doubles: #1—Lauren Reutter and Margaret Reutter (WR) 6-3, 6-1 over Carly Athay and Rachel Webster (TF). #2—Tory Lakey and Erin Murphy (WR) 6-3, 6-4 over Kayla Ash and Natalie White (TF).
Mixed doubles: #1—Morgan Pike and Jessica Hamilton (WR) 6-1, 6-2 over Jeff Ward and Brittani Pierce (TF). #2—Will Eagan and Teagen Palmer (WR) 6-1, 6-0 over Andrew Starley and Madison Bernheisel (TF).
Wood River sophomore Kaitana Martinez takes off around the basepaths during Friday’s first game against the Twin Falls Bruins at South Valley Sports Complex in Hailey.
