The first tournament of 2011 for the Wood River High School tennis teams was the Eastern Idaho Invitational meet April 15-16 in Idaho Falls.
It had eight Idaho 4A and 5A schools—Idaho Falls, Hillcrest, Bonneville and Skyline of Idaho Falls, plus Madison of Rexburg, Pocatello, Century of Pocatello and Wood River.
The two-day tourney had a feed-in consolation. Main draw determined the top four places. Con-solation winner was No. 5.
Wood River's No. 1 mixed doubles Raleigh Grossbaum and Jessica Hamilton won the main draw. Jessica's strong serving and Raleigh's tactics coalesced for straight-set wins.
Placing second in the main draw was No. 1 boys' singles Karl Wilander. The Wolverine junior played a strong three-set final against Century sophomore Josh Goodwin, last year's 4A state champion.
In the first set Wilander was able to move Goodwin off the court to his backhand side and then rip forehand winners. In the second set, Goodwin stepped it up and wrapped up the victory. The two rivals are likely to meet again this year.
Earning fifth places in the consolation bracket were Hannah Baybutt-Margaret Reutter (girls' doubles), Josh Morell (singles) and Bryan Donoso-Ellen Davis (mixed). Sixth in boys' doubles were Charlie Grabow and Quentin Dowdle.
In the finals of mixed doubles consolation, Donoso-Davis won the first set 7-5 and dropped the second 6-4. Trailing 9-1 in the decisive third-set 10-point tiebreaker, Donoso-Davis came back to win 11-9.
Morell won his consolation final convincingly. In addition, Wood River boasted strong results from singles prospects Gardner Cord (2 wins in main draw) and Erin Murphy (making semi-finals of consolation).
