BY MICHAEL DAVID
The Wood River Wolverines came out on the short end of a classic pitchers’ duel Thursday afternoon at Founders Field in Hailey.
The Minico Spartans took advantage of a dominating pitching performance by Jaden Jensen to beat the Wolverines by a final score of 2-0.
Thus they took the first game of a three-game series between the two Great Basin rivals. The loss left Wood River and Minico tied for second place in the conference behind the Twin Falls Bruins.
Senior pitcher Nic Tidwell went toe-to-toe with Jensen, limiting the Spartans to one earned run and five hits, while striking out seven batters. After allowing the first three batters to reach safely in the first inning, Tidwell extricated himself from the jam by inducing a double-play and striking out Minico’s first baseman Ty Winmill.
Tidwell then continued to frustrate the Spartans for the next two innings before giving up an unearned run in the top half of the fourth inning and an additional run on a sacrifice fly by Drake Miller in the fifth inning.
Offensively, the Wolverines were unable to break through against Jensen, managing just six singles and failing to get any runners past second base against the Minico starting pitcher.
Not that they didn’t keep trying through the last inning.
Despite their struggles at the plate, Wood River’s final inning started out with significant promise. Pinch hitter Owen Gifford led off the final frame with a sharp single to right center field. After Jensen’s fifth strikeout, center fielder Dylan Broman was hit by a pitch and reached base for the third time in the ball game, putting runners on first and second with one out.
Senior Alec Nordsieck hit a sharp ground ball to the second baseman, who shoveled the ball to the shortstop to beat a sliding Broman to the bag for the second out. But, instead of the inning continuing, the umpire ruled that Broman had interfered with the shortstop and called Nordsieck out for the final out of the ball game.
“I thought a made a good, hard legal slide, but that’s baseball,” said Broman. “We just need to get a good night’s sleep and go out and try to take two from Minico tomorrow.”
The Wolverines and Spartans will play a double-header at 3 and 5 p.m. today—Friday, April 15. Wood River will return home on Monday, April 18, to face Mountain Home at Founders Field. Game time is 4:30 pm.
Minico 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 --- 2
Wood River 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --- 0
Wood River Wolverines ab r h rbi
Broman cf 3 0 2 0
Nordsieck ss 4 0 0 0
Whitehead 3b 3 0 0 0
Rojas 1b 2 0 0 0
Gibson dh 3 0 2 0
Tidwell p 2 0 0 0
Buxton c 3 0 0 0
Schott 2b 2 0 0 0
Gifford ph 1 0 1 0
Hovey rf 3 0 1 0
Totals 26 0 6 0
BB—Rojas, Tidwell
HBP—Broman