Lady Tigers score first win

It took them over half the season to do it, but the Mountain Home Lady Tigers broke into the win column Friday night, with their home conference win over Caldwell. The night before, the Lady Tigers had lost at Bishop Kelly.

Bishop Kelly 64

Mountain Home 28

Perhaps Mountain Home Lady Tiger coach Karen Kohring should have asked the officials to check their basket Thursday night at Bishop Kelly, to make sure there wasn't a lid on it. It certainly seemed like it.

Mountain Home fell behind 20-4 to the Lady Knights after a quarter, and trailed 32-11 at halftime. The second half wasn't much better, with Bishop Kelly outscoring them 32-17.

For the game, Mountain Home shot just 26 percent (11 of 42) from the field, and made only one of eight (13 percent) three-point attempts, and managed to cash in on only three of 13 (23 percent) free throws.

Erica Stanton led Mountain Home with six points scored at Bishop Kelly. Lauren Hicks and Christa Stanton both scored five points, for Hicks, a new season high. Kylie Lippert and Kim Gulley each netted four, Shelby Wickmark and Ali Hillman both scored two.

Mountain Home 50

Caldwell 36

Mountain Home put together an aggressive defense coupled with some opportunistic baskets, and, in the end, cashed in at the free throw line in recording their first win of the season Friday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

The Lady Tigers led most of the first quarter before Caldwell came back to tie it at 7-7 at the end of the period.

After Caldwell took their one and only lead of the game, 9-7, in the first minute of the second quarter, the Lady Tigers got a basket from Kim Gulley to tie it at 9, then a basket by Shelby Wickmark to take the lead, a lead they would have the rest of the game.

Mountain Home led 21-15 at the half, and extended their lead to 31-22 heading into the final quarter.

The Lady Cougars managed to cut the lead down to five on a couple occasions in the final quarter, the last one, 36-31, with 4:35 left.

Over the next nearly three minutes, Mountain Home went on a 9-0 run to make it, 45-31, before Caldwell scored again with 1:44 left. The Lady Tigers biggest lead came on Ali Hillman's basket with 30 seconds left, that made it 50-35.

Erica Stanton led the Lady Tigers with 11 points. Ali Hillman netted 10 points, Des Walden added nine, a new season high for her. Lauren Hicks and Christa Stanton both scored five, Shelby Wickmark and Amanda Bitterman each had four, Wickmark, a team-high 10 rebounds, and Kim Gulley scored two.

Neither team shot that well from long range, with Mountain Home hitting one of seven (14 percent), while the Lady Cougars missed all nine of their attempts.

Inside the arc, both teams shot 35 percent (Mountain Home, 12 of 34, Caldwell, 9 of 26), while the Lady Tigers cashed in on 23 of 37 attempts (62 percent) from the foul line, while Caldwell made 18 of 33 (55 percent).

Mountain Home had 28 turnovers, but their aggressive defense created 36 Lady Cougar turnovers, with Mountain Home scoring 25 points off the turnovers, Caldwell just nine.

Lady Tiger Coach Karen Kohring was happy to finally get that first win.

"The girls really played well together as a team and had a good team effort, played good defense, and our offense was clicking a little bit, to score 50 points, we were doing something right. We didn't always make the shots, but we got to the foul line.

Overall, it was a good team effort, and we're excited to have the win."

The Lady Tigers are off now for the Christmas holidays, returning to action on Jan. 3 at Wood River, part of a "Super Saturday," with both girls and boys games at Wood River.