Wood River beats Buhl 7-6 in back-and-forth beauty
Fourth consecutive league title for Wolverine baseball team
Like everyone expected, Tuesday's Sawtooth Central Idaho Conference
league championship game between Wood River and Buhl went down to the final pitch at Hailey's Founders Field--and it was a happy result for
coach Lars Hovey's Wolverines.
Trailing 2-0 in the third inning and 6-4 in the sixth, Wood River
rallied for three runs in the bottom of the sixth and blanked Buhl in its final at-bats to beat the Tribe 7-6 and claim the league
championship for the fourth consecutive year. In fact, in the 10 years the league has been playing baseball, Hovey's Wolverines have now won
the league title seven times.
Third baseman Jake Upham (2 hits, 3 RBI) gave the Wolverines the
go-ahead runs with a one-out, two-run single in the sixth. Setting the table for Upham's heroics were one-out walks drawn by the #8 and #9
hitters, Joe Molyneux and Kellen Chatterton, followed by an opposite-field RBI double by leadoff hitter Max Paisley (2 hits, 2
runs). That brought Upham to the plate, and he ripped the first offering from Buhl relief pitcher Jeff Walker up the middle to bring Paisley home
with the seventh and eventual winning run. In Buhl's final at-bats, Wood River relief pitcher Riley Nash came
out and did the job, firing strikes.
Nash (4-4), beaten by Buhl 9-2 in his last appearance Thursday at Buhl, allowed a leadoff double by Tribe
catcher Cody Chandler. Then Nash enticed a ground ball to Upham at third and secured a huge strikeout for the second out--getting Cody Owen
looking with a called third strike on the inside corner. Nash speared a wicked line drive up the middle by Rob Walker and prevented a sure run,
but the senior couldn't hold on to the liner and Walker ended up at first base. With the tying run at third and two outs, Nash got the final
out--a pop-up on a 3-2 pitch.
Wood River couldn't make any headway against Buhl ace Seth Mathews
until the fourth, when Molyneux plated Nic Nottingham (2 hits) and Ryne Reynoso with a hard, two-run double to the right center field gap. Buhl
added a single run in the fifth to lead 3-2. Once again, Wood River had an answer.
In the home fifth, Paisley led off and quickly got behind on the count, 0-2. He fouled off a pitch. Then Mathews grooved a pitch and
Paisley hammered it to the fence in right field for a triple. Upham brought Paisley home for a 3-3 game with a bouncing ball. Cory
Goicoechea pounded a long triple to the center field fence and scored when Nottingham ripped another 0-2 offering from Matthews for an RBI
single.
Buhl coach Gary Krumm yanked Mathews from the game and brought
in his shortstop, Jeff Walker. Walker put out the fire. In the visitor sixth, Buhl tacked on three more runs for a 6-4 lead, Walker's two-out,
two-run triple the big blow. Things looked bad for Wood River, with the bottom of its order coming up in the bottom of sixth. But Walker walked
Molyneux and Chatterton, followed by Paisley and Upham's huge hits, and the Wolverines captured yet another league title.
Wood River outhit Buhl 9-6 and gave the Tribe three unearned runs.
Starting pitcher Jeff Bolton (5-0) struggled with his control and threw 101 pitches in five-plus innings, but Bolton allowed only three hits and
kept his team in the game by getting big outs. Buhl stranded nine runners.
The victory meant Wood River earned the top seed in the four-team
SCIC tournament starting Friday, May 3. The Wolverines will host #4-seeded Filer Friday at 5 p.m. at Founders Field, with #2-seeded Buhl
hosting #3-seeded Kimberly Friday at the same time. If Wood River and Buhl win their tournament games Friday, they'll be back at Founders
Field Saturday, May 5 at 11 a.m. for another big SCIC contest.
