Senior pitcher Ali Levy was the workhorse for the Wood River High School softball team during the Lady Dawg Invitational tournament Friday and Saturday, April 15-16 on the Kimberly High School fields.
Righthander Levy (4-4) was in the circle for all four Wolverines tournament games, tossing 20 and two-thirds innings with 17 strikeouts. Levy absorbed all three Wood River losses, and also beat South Fremont of St. Anthony by a score of 16-0.
Wood River's non-conference losses at Kimberly were 11-6 to 3A Teton High from Driggs, 6-5 in eight innings to Spring Creek (Elko, Nev.) and 12-3 to 5A Highland of Pocatello in Saturday's finale.
Missing three players due to other school commitments, coach Dale Martin's Wolverines (5-6, 4-0 league) used the weekend tournament to brush up for Great Basin Conference league challenges lying ahead.
Wood River completed its three-game season series with Burley (3-8, 1-7) Tuesday, April 19 in the Hailey home opener. Burley won its first league game last weekend 5-4 over Jerome (6-5, 3-5), salvaging one game in the three-game series.
Reigning GBC champ Jerome won the first two games over Burley 10-0 and 11-1.
The Wolverines play their three-game season series with Twin Falls (8-5, 7-2) on Friday and Saturday, April 22-23, then face upstart Canyon Ridge of Twin Falls (12-3, 7-2) April 29-30. Wood River hosts Twin Falls in a Saturday twinbill at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Twin Falls had won its six league games by a lopsided 91-28 margin before dropping two of three games to Canyon Ridge last weekend. Canyon Ridge won its first-ever games over Twin Falls 5-3 and 13-5, and lost 16-10 in a third encounter.
At Kimberly last weekend, the dominant teams were Highland and Spring Creek.
Highland won its games 3-0 over Kimberly—first loss of the season for Bulldog star pitcher Nellie Makings—along with Buhl 6-1, Wood River 12-3 and South Fremont 12-1. Spring Creek beat host team Kimberly (10-2) by a 4-1 score, along with wins over Buhl 11-9, Wood River 6-5 and Homedale 7-4.
Leading the Wolverine weekend tournament bats were Madison Gove (4-for-10, 7 runs, 6 walks), Mercedes Powell (5-for-14, 2 runs), Shelby Cooper (4-for-12, 4 runs), catcher Kori Paradis (4-for-10, 4 runs, 4 walks) and catcher Devan Atkinson (2 hits, 3 runs, 6 walks).
Extra-base hits for Wood River in the win over South Fremont were by Madison Gove (2 triples), Cooper (triple) and Josie Dawson (double). Atkinson ripped two triples and Gove a double to top the 10-hit Hailey attack against Teton.
The Spring Creek game featured some terrific pitching and defense, in fact, Wood River had only three errors in its first three games before slipping a bit with a five-error outing in the Highland shutout.
Powell and Paradis belted doubles against Spring Creek—a game that wasn't settled until the eighth when Wood River pushed across two runs and the Nevada team scored three.
