Friday, October 10, 2014

Much at stake in Thursday’s soccer doubleheader

Scenario for Great Basin tournaments


By JEFF CORDES
Express Staff Writer

     The 4A Great Basin Conference boys’ and girls’ soccer tournament seedings and schedules were finalized this week, with each meet starting Thursday, Oct. 9.

     Hailey’s Wood River High School hosted a doubleheader of first-round boys’ and girls’ games Thursday.

     The No. 3-seeded Wood River girls (10-4-0, 7-3-0 league) tried to improve upon their 6-1-0 home record when they entertained the No. 6-seeded Jerome Tigers (1-9) at 4:30 p.m. on the South Valley Sports Complex soccer field in Hailey.

     Wood River’s girls defeated Jerome 4-0 Tuesday in the regular-season finale on the Tiger pitch. The Wolverines routed Jerome 9-1 at home back on Sept. 18.

     Prior to that girls’ game, at 2:30 p.m. Thursday on the same field, the No. 4-seeded Wood River boys (6-8-0, 4-6 league) hosted the No. 5 Burley Bobcats (4-9-0, 3-7-0).

     The teams had played twice, Burley winning 4-1 in Hailey and 1-0 at home. Both teams entered the game with losses in Tuesday’s season finales, Wood River falling 2-1 at home to Jerome and Burley losing 4-2 at home to Twin Falls.

 

New scenario for making state

     Soccer fans will immediately notice that the six-team 2014 tournaments have been downsized by one game compared to last year—in large part to give the third-place teams another day of rest before meeting the Boise-area third-place team in a state play-in game Oct. 18.

     That change favors the good teams since the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds need to win only one game in order to qualify for the State 4A tournament.

     It makes it harder for teams that falter even once to make state. Lose one game Thursday or Saturday, and it’s possible you’ll need to play Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday next week to make the State 4A tournament scheduled for Oct. 23-25 in Coeur d’Alene.

     For instance, the top-seeded Twin Falls girls (13-3-0, 9-1-0) have their first game Saturday, Oct. 11 at SunWay Soccer Complex in Twin Falls. They will play the winner of Thursday’s first-round game between No. 4 Burley (7-8-0, 4-6-0) and No. 5 Minico (1-9-0).

     If the three-time defending Bruin girls beat Burley or Minico Saturday, they’ll advance directly into the Great Basin championship game Thursday, Oct. 16.

     Since both teams making the championship game automatically qualify for state, they’ll be playing for pride and state seeding in next Thursday’s title contest.

     On the downside, it means that the two championship game qualifiers will have played only two games in the 14 days between Oct. 10 and the start of the state tourney Oct. 23 in northern Idaho.

     No obstacle that schedule makers throw into their path seems to derail the defending State 4A boys’ tournament champion Jerome Tigers.

     Jerome (12-1-0, 9-1-0) carries a seven-game winning streak in which it has outscored foes 52-10 into its first-round game Saturday, Oct. 11 at noon at SunWay Complex against the winner of Thursday’s Wood River-Burley game.

     Challenges facing the Wood River boys and girls are clear.

     The girls needed to beat Jerome at home Thursday and No. 2-seeded Canyon Ridge (10-6-1, 8-2-0) on Saturday at 2 p.m. at SunWay in order to qualify for the school’s 20th consecutive state tournament trip.

     If Hailey’s girls lose to Canyon Ridge Saturday, they’ll likely have one more chance to make the state play-in game with a home loser-out game Wednesday, Oct. 15.

     Wood River’s girls have finished second to Twin Falls in the conference tournament three straight years.

     Last year, the Wolverines came through the loser bracket and claimed second place 1-0 over Canyon Ridge. The Riverhawks had lost to Twin Falls 8-0 in the district title game two days before.

     The Hailey boys needed to get past Burley for the first time this season and then upset Jerome on Saturday to make the state tournament. So far, the Wolverines have played Jerome tough, losing 2-1 Tuesday and 1-1 (5-4 shootout) at Jerome Sept. 18.

     Last year, Jerome won its second straight GBC tournament title and fifth in seven years by a 1-0 score over second-place Wood River. Then Wood River qualified for state by edging Twin Falls 1-0.

     Because Thursday’s first-round games were district competitions, Wood River High charged admission. The Wolverine regular-season soccer games had been free to spectators this fall.

     General adult admission was $5 per person. Students (K-12) were charged $2, seniors 65-and-older pay $3 and children under six were free. If you had an Idaho High School Activities Association card, you and one guest were admitted free of charge.




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.