The Wood River High School tennis team had a great day Tuesday and a decent day Wednesday at Sun Valley Tennis Club—winning two of the five titles in the two-day Great Basin Conference 4A tourney.
No. 1-seeded Alex Taylor and Samantha Taylor, Wood River’s senior and sophomore sisters, won the GBC girls’ doubles championship by scores of 6-0, 6-0. They rose from last year’s runner-up finish by losing only one game in three straight-set match victories.
Nearly as dominant for Hailey was the top-seeded mixed doubles pair of juniors Aaron Pearson and Haley Cutler.
They won 6-2, 6-3 over a Burley pair to finish a string of three straight-set victories. It was the first GBC tournament mixed doubles crown for Cutler, who teamed with Margaret Reutter for last year’s GBC and State 4A girls’ doubles titles.
In all, Wood River qualified seven of its 16 entrants—one in singles and six in doubles—for the State 4A tournament May 16-17 at Timberline in Boise.
Meanwhile, Twin Falls put together a great day Wednesday and won the school’s first Great Basin Conference overall team championship highlighted by titles in girls’ singles and boys’ doubles.
Twin Falls won eight of its nine matches during Wednesday’s final competition day and pulled past four-time defending overall winner Wood River by a 90-87.5 count for its first-ever GBC overall team title. The only match Twin Falls lost Wednesday pitted two Twin Falls doubles teams against each other.
Wood River, a 120-107 winner over Twin Falls last year in the overall ranks, built a precarious seven-point overall lead over the Bruins after Tuesday’s flurry of matches. But Twin Falls outscored Wood River 57-48 Wednesday to squeak out the team victory.
Still, host Wood River captured the boys’ team honor 50.5 to 41 over defending champ Twin Falls—making it four GBC boys’ titles in five years for the Hailey boys. With its 49-45 win over Burley in the girls’ team race, Twin Falls snapped Wood River’s string of six straight girls’ crowns.
Wood River’s girls settled for third place with 37.5 points.
The only title not going to Wood River or Twin Falls on Wednesday came in boys’ singles, with Canyon Ridge sophomore Cole Hunt winning his final 6-0, 6-0 and finishing a run of three match wins without losing a single game.
Coach Carlos Meza was proud of a Wolverine squad that pulled off some big upsets Tuesday and piled up an 18-9 match record on the first day. That included 7-4 in singles and 11-5 in doubles.
Placing second in Wednesday’s event finals were Wood River sophomore Danny Graves in boys’ singles, and seniors Stephen Pfeiffer-Andrew Graves boys’ doubles.
Coach Meza said, “Contributing to the overall team points were Clay Cutler and Miles Remington who reached the semi-final in the consolation bracket; Oskar Wilander who also reached the consolation semi-final in boys’ singles; and, Megan Murphy, who reached the semi-final of the consolation bracket in girls’ singles.
“Consolation quarter finalists were mixed team of Brady Delgadillo and partner, Josie Potts; the girls’ doubles Fernanda Lagunas and Cheyanne Stopol; and Manuela Cortina-Otero represented the Wolverines in her two girls’ singles matches before bowing out.
“Noteworthy is that Manuela joined the tennis team about four weeks ago. She had never played tennis before competitively other than a paddle ball sport. She contributed to the success of the team throughout the season with impressive play for someone with her limited experience.”
Here are the final overall GBC standings, and boys’ and girls’ rankings:
Overall: 1—Twin Falls 90 points. 2—Wood River 87.5. 3—Burley 71. 4—Canyon Ridge of Twin Falls 56.5. 5—Minico of Rupert 34. 6—Jerome 9.
Boys: 1—Wood River 23.5 points. 2—Canyon Ridge 17.5. 3—Twin Falls 15. 4—Burley 13 and Minico 13. 6—Jerome 1.
Girls: 1—Twin Falls 18. 2—Burley 17. 3—Wood River 16.5. 4—Minico 11. 5—Canyon Ridge 10.5. 6—Jerome 8.
Here is the state qualifier list from the Great Basin, by number of players:
Twin Falls 10 (2 singles, 8 doubles); Burley 8 (2 singles, 6 doubles); Wood River 7 (1 singles, 6 doubles); Minico 3 (1 singles, 2 doubles); Canyon Ridge 4 (2 singles, 2 doubles).
Results of Wednesday’s first- and third-place matches:
· Boys’ singles—Championship: No. 1 Cole Hunt, Canyon Ridge sophomore, 6-0, 6-0 over No. 3 Danny Graves, WRHS sophomore.
Third place: No. 2 Brad Pierce, Twin Falls junior, 6-2, 6-1 over No. 4 Fernando Santana, Minico senior.
Graves made the final by upsetting No. 2-seeded Brad Pierce of Twin Falls 6-3, 2-6, 6-4. Adding points to Wood River’s total was freshman Oskar Wilander. He won three matches Tuesday before exiting 6-2, 6-4 to Santana.
· Girls’ singles—Championship: No. 1 Hailey Orton, Twin Falls senior, won 7-6 (3), 6-1 over Maddie Dahlquist, Canyon Ridge senior. Orton was third in 2013.
Third place: Brianna Pope, Burley senior, 2-6, 7-6 (5), 6-3 over sister Kaycee Pope, Burley freshman.
Wood River junior Megan Murphy upset No. 2-seeded Brianna Pope, Burley senior, 6-2, 6-0 in Tuesday’s championship round play. Pope got revenge 6-3, 6-1 in Wednesday’s consolation semi-final.
· Boys’ doubles—Championship: No. 1 Andy Carter, junior, and Matthew Sato, freshman, of Twin Falls rallied 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-0 over against No. 2 Stephen Pfeiffer and Andrew Graves, Wood River seniors.
Third place: No. 3 Jaxon Greener-Elliot Heiner, Burley’s senior and sophomore, prevailed 6-0, 4-6, 6-2 over No. 4 Ivan Kranjc and Tristan Greaves, senior and junior from Canyon Ridge.
Wood River junior Miles Remington and freshman Clay Cutler upset Canyon Ridge’s Kranjc-Greaves 6-4, 7-6 (14-12) in Tuesday’s championship round match. The Canyon Ridge pair ousted Remington-Cutler 7-5, 6-3 Wednesday.
· Girls’ doubles—Championship: No. 1 Alex Taylor and Samantha Taylor of Wood River won 6-0, 6-0 over No. 2-seeded Kestle Masoner and Stephanie Spackman, Burley sophomores.
Third place: Lexi Brodin and Jordan Rogers, Twin Falls sophomores, won 6-4, 6-1 over Emily Perry and Emily Pilling, Twin Falls soph/freshman.
Winning two matches for Wood River were Fernanda Lagunas and Cheyanne Stopol, sophomore and junior.
· Mixed doubles—Championship: No. 1-seeded Andrew Pearson and Haley Cutler, Wood River juniors, prevailed 6-2, 6-3 over No. 2-seeded Brandon Hosteen-Kaci Carpenter, Burley seniors.
Third place: Sam Cox and Morgan Biggs, Twin Falls junior/sophomore, won 7-6 (5), 6-2 over Willem Bradford-Karen Hansen, Minico juniors.
This year’s State 4A tennis tournament staged by the Idaho High School Activities Association will once again be a seeded tournament. The seeding meeting will be held in Boise Monday, May 13 at 5 p.m., after which the tournament brackets will be posted on the IHSAA Web site.
Century of Pocatello with 53 points won last year’s 4A overall team title over Blackfoot, 47. Wood River was third, 36.
The top boys’ team was Century 28 to 27.5 over Blackfoot. The top girls’ team was Skyview of Nampa 29-25 over defending champ Century.
Wood River junior Haley Cutler stretches for a return during her Great Basin Conference mixed doubles championship match win with junior partner Andrew Pearson at Sun Valley Tennis Club. Photo by Roland Lane
