District volleyball tournaments are winding down for the Wood River High School, Carey School and Community School varsity squads.
Monday night, No. 3-seeded Wood River (17-16) won one match and lost once in the six-school Great Basin Conference tournament at Twin Falls High School. The Wolverines defeated No. 6 Burley 25-23, 25-18, 25-16 and later lost to No. 2 Jerome 25-19, 18-25, 25-18, 25-14.
Senior Kori Paradis had 17 kills, Ciceley Peavey 18 digs, Brittney Bradley 17 assists and Lily Richards 7 kills/15 digs in the Burley victory. Against Jerome, Paradis and Richards each had 12 kills, Bradley added 28 assists and Richards chipped in with 20 digs.
In other matches, No. 5 Canyon Ridge defeated No. 4 Minico 19-25, 25-16, 25-17, 25-13; No. 1 Twin Falls breezed past Canyon Ridge 25-11, 25-16, 25-11; and Minico ousted Burley in the loser bracket of the double elimination tournament 31-29, 25-23, 26-24.
Three-time defending league champion Twin Falls played Jerome Tuesday night for one of the two automatic GBC berths to the State 4A tournament Oct. 26-27 at Skyline High School in Idaho Falls.
Wood River coach Tim Richards said about Monday’s opening night, “A tough start at districts for the Wolverines.
“Against Jerome, the score in the first game was 17-19 and we lost 19-25. We had a lack of accurate passing and winning swings. The girls rebounded and won the second game 25-18. At one point we were up 19-10 and several interesting referee decisions, including two four-ball touches on Jerome's side let Jerome get back in the game.
“In game three we were tied at 12-12 and lost our passing accuracy and swing efficiency and lost 25-18. In the fourth game we were tied at 4-4 when our libero, Ciceley Peavey, took a full power swing in her face on its way out of bounds and is knocked silly. She may have a possible concussion and be out for the rest of districts.
“Jerome went on a eight-point run. We tried to figure out who could pass the ball to the target. But we didn't recover and lost 25-14.”
Richards said, “In the Jerome match Kori had 12 kills out of 57 swings, Lily had 12 kills out of 36 swings, Haley Cutler had 5 kills out of 21 swings and Sydney Thomsen had 4 kills out of 7 swings. Brittney led us with 28 assists, Kori added 5 blocks and Lily topped us with 20 digs.”
Wood River tried to stay alive Tuesday night with a match against either Minico or Canyon Ridge.
Last Thursday, the Wolverines defeated Canyon Ridge on “Senior Night” 23-25, 25-17, 18-25, 25-14, 15-12.
Coach Richards said, “It was another successful ‘Senior Night’ at the Wolverine Dome. We defeated Canyon Ridge in five games. It was a good challenge as it was our first five-game match of the season, which might help us with conditioning for the district tournament next week.
“We showed improvement this season, playing a lot of sophomores and ended up with a third seed for the tournament.”
Richards said, “Wood River came out strong with 11-5 and 15-9 leads in the first game, but our ‘lack of focus’ nemesis returned and Canyon Ridge won the first game 23-25. Our girls re-focused and took the second game 25-17 and then came out in the third game, left their focus somewhere else and got down 6-0. We battled back to an 18-25 loss.
“The coaches helped the girls get re-focused again for the last two games and Wood River won 25-14 in the fourth and 15-12 in the final game.
“Overall it was a great team effort with great contributions from our bench from Sydney Thomsen, Ashley Hicks and Sadie Dawson.
“The seniors were our offensive leaders with Kori Paradis having 24 kills, 13 errors and 65 swings; Lily Richards having 13 kills 4 errors out of 52 swings; and Madi Hendrix having 4 kills and 1 error out of 14 swings.
“Mary Petzke added 3 kills also. The assists were distributed between Brittney Bradley, Haley Cutler and Lily. We played Brittney (ankle injury) sparingly in the first few games and she had 19 assists. Haley had 14 and Lily had 10. Ciceley Peavey was excellent as always with 24 digs and Kori and Lily added 18 digs apiece.
“We had 11 total aces, with Lily leading the way with 3. And there were only six serving errors last night. We had 46 kills in our offensive effort.”
Northside volleyball
At the Northside Conference 1A tournament in Dietrich Saturday, No. 5 Carey lost to No. 4 Richfield 25-19, 25-20, 25-17 and No. 8 Community School fell to top-seeded Lighthouse Christian 25-8, 25-4, 25-11.
Carey and Community School clashed to stay alive Tuesday night. Meanwhile, three-time defending State 1A Division 2 champion and reigning Northside winner Camas County of Fairfield played Dietrich for a spot in tonight’s championship match on the Dietrich hardwoods.
No. 2 Camas County opened with a 20-25, 25-13, 25-21, 25-17 win over No. 7 Castleford on Saturday, while No. 3 Dietrich got past No. 6 Murtaugh 25-16, 25-11, 25-17.
At stake are two automatic Northside berths for the State 1A Division 2 tournament Oct. 26-27 at Twin Falls High School. The third-place Northside tournament team will have to win an Oct. 20 state play-in match at American Falls to earn a berth.
Wood River sophomores Haley Cutler (in front) and Ciceley Peavey keep a ball alive during Thursday’s “Senior Night” five-game home win over Canyon Ridge in Hailey. Photo by David N. Seelig
