Take these two things to the bank about the Wood River baseball program coached by Matt Nelson—the Wolverines (spring high school season) and Wranglers (summer) are tough at home, and they're going to hit the ball well and hard.
We're talking bats here, and we're also talking Braatz.
Braatz is incoming junior Connor Braatz, one of the younger players on Nelson's scrappy Wranglers during the 2010 Wood River American Legion Area C "A" campaign that started slowly for the Hailey boys and has heated up lately.
Still, even with their ability to hit the ball, could the Wranglers hit in the clutch? They had their chance at Hailey's Founders Field on Monday in the completion of a July 6 suspended game with the Twin Falls/Canyon Ridge Hawks.
They performed admirably.
With the season on the line and his team trailing the Hawks 9-8 in the 11th inning of the do-or-die playoff game, Braatz stepped to the plate with runners on second and third and one out. He took two quick strikes from Hawks righty reliever Scott Speer. No pressure.
But Braatz didn't hesitate when Speer got too much of the plate on the third offering. Braatz belted a long fly ball to left center for a game-winning, two-run walk-off double that put the Wranglers into today's Area C "A" district tournament.
The Wranglers prevailed 10-9 for winning pitcher Jake Freeman, in relief of Collin Dean, who threw the first nine.
Wood River, winning for the ninth time in 10 games, became the final entry into the 12-team tournament that opens today at 9 a.m. on two diamonds in American Falls. And the Wranglers (17-20, 11-17 league, 11-5 home) are one of the hottest teams entering the four-day state-qualifying tourney.
In their last eight games, the Wranglers have outscored opponents 97-35. They're averaging 8.4 runs per game after a 4-14 start to the season. They've won nine of 10 dating back to a pair of hard-fought 3-1 and 4-3 losses to East top seed Skyline back on June 28 in Idaho Falls.
They're about where Nelson wanted them to be entering the district meet. As Nelson likes to say and means it, "I wouldn't want to be playing us."
And the team Wood River is facing is defending State "A" Legion champion Bonneville of Idaho Falls at 9 a.m. in the first of eight games today on the two American Falls fields.
Bonneville is the third seed out of the Eastern Division, while Wood River is the sixth seed out of the West. The two teams split a pair of closely played contests 7-5 and 8-5 June 11 at Founders Field.
Heavily favored to win the tournament Saturday, July 24 is the Buhl Tribe (30-4). But upsets happen all the time in the summer-ending tourney.
Last year, the Wranglers (25-18, 13-4 home) were seeded eighth of 12 teams. But they won three of their five games in the district tournament to finish fifth overall—scoring 297 runs (7.8 per game) and yielding 232 (6.1) on the season.
Bonneville (32-5), last year's district tournament champion by an 8-4 score over #3-seeded Upper Valley of St. Anthony, went on to win the State "A" American Legion title 16-2 over the Emmett Blue Devils on the Orofino diamond.
Since Upper Valley defeated the Buhl Tribe (29-11) by a 6-5 score for third place at state, the results meant Area C had three of the top four teams at state in 2009. Only Bonneville, Upper Valley and Buhl qualified for state from Area C.
This year, Area C gets three state tournament berths again for the big meet scheduled for July 28-31 in Burley. But the Burley Green Sox receive an automatic state berth for hosting, which means that two state berths are at stake in the American Falls district meet.
Other first-round games today are: Hillcrest of Idaho Falls (East #5) vs. Twin Falls (West #4) at 9 a.m.; Burley (West #3) vs. Bear Lake of Montpelier (East #6) at 12 noon; and Kimberly (West #5) vs. Idaho Falls Rangers (East #4) at 12 noon.
The winner of Bonneville-Wood River waits until 3 p.m. today to face Pocatello (West #2) in the winner bracket. The loser of Bonneville-Wood River returns Thursday, July 22 for a 12 noon game against, most likely, Kimberly or Idaho Falls.
It comes down to one game
Wood River is familiar with American Falls, having played there last Friday in the regular-season finale against coach Jim Chandler's Marsh Falls squad. The Wranglers won the first game 9-5 and lost the second 3-1. The result snapped an eight-game Wranglers win streak.
If Wood River had swept both games of the doubleheader, they would have qualified for district meet and wouldn't have needed to finish the suspended game against the Canyon Ridge Hawks. But Marsh Falls ace Nate Villalobos threw a two-hitter with six whiffs and smacked a solo homer himself in the 3-1 win.
Righthander Dean (5 hits, 5 BB, 8 K) was the winning pitcher in Friday's 9-5 opener, with 1-2-3 seventh inning relief by Taz Lyons. Bats came alive for the Wranglers after Marsh Falls took an early 2-0 lead.
Leadoff singles by Dean and Alex Padilla led to a two-run second for a 2-2 tie. Wood River added four runs in the third after leadoff hits by Brandon Beall and Keven Abbott (2 hits, 2 runs). Back-to-back one-out singles by Zach Israel (2 runs) and Nic Brunker sparked a two-run fourth for an 8-2 lead.
Monday's suspended game took about 45 minutes to put into the books and each team had chances to put it away.
Freeman plunked Jacob Newton of Twin Falls to start the 10th but stranded the potential go-ahead run at second base with a three-pitch strikeout. Wood River had a golden opportunity in the home 10th when Lyons led off with a one-bounce blast for a double to the center field fence. The Wranglers squandered the chance.
Nelson said, "I thought we were in real good shape after Taz's double, but the best laid plans can go wrong."
Leading off the 11th, Hawks pitcher Speer drilled a long solo homer to left. A bit rattled, Freeman gave up a one-out single to Nic Magee and plunked Trae Bishop. Having moved to third on a force play, Magee broke for home on some mis-attention by the Wrangler infielders and scored for a 9-7 game. Freeman got out of further trouble with a strikeout.
Nelson encouraged his players when they came in to the dugout. He said after the game, "I knew we had the top of our batting order coming up. I wasn't real concerned at that point, but I was very stressed."
Graduating senior Abbott led it off with a first-pitch infield single between short and third. Center fielder Padilla came up, fouled off a pitch, missed a bunt attempt, fouled off another and worked the count to 3-2 with Abbott stealing second base in the process.
On a full count, southpaw swinger Padilla absolutely crushed a line drive to right field that finally ricocheted off the base of the fence. One of his teammates said it was the hardest hit ball he'd ever seen.
Abbott scored on the drive, but Padilla missed touching first base and had to stay there. A bit sheepish at his baserunning mistake, he ended up with a 300-foot single. Still, no outs.
Left fielder Jimmy Hague ripped a ground ball with a high hop that the Hawks shortstop couldn't handle, then catcher Nic Brunker laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt along the third base line for the first out of the inning—moving the runners to second and third.
Braatz came up with a chance for redemption that few recalled. Back on July 6, Wood River having rallied from an early 4-1 deficit ended up in a 5-5 tie after regulation. The Hawks pushed two runs across in the ninth for a 7-5 lead, but Hague's one-out two-run double to right field tied the game 7-7.
Coming up in that situation, Braatz struck out in his chance to score Hague and win the game. This time, with the season on the line, Braatz belted the winner to score Padilla and Hague and send the Wranglers to districts in American Falls.
Wood River Wranglers left fielder Jimmy Hague scored the game-winning run in Monday night’s playoff game, scooting home behind Alex Padilla on Connor Braatz’s two-run walk-off double. Photo by David N. Seelig
