Lady Tigers place third at district

In a busy week of softball, the Mountain Home Lady Tigers battled back from an opening game loss to take third place at the District III 4A Softball Tournament at Vallivue.

They then traveled to Lewiston to face Post Falls in a state playoff game but failed to qualify for the state tourney.

Bishop Kelly 1

MountainHome 0

The Lady Knights pushed across a run in the first inning against Michelle Reynolds, and made it hold up for the victory.

Mountain Home out-hit the Lady Knights 7-3, but left 13 runners on base during the ball game.

Paula Doerr and Des Walden both had two hits in the game, Ali Hillman, Cathy Gilbert and Kristin Brandli also had hits.

Michelle Reynolds suffered the loss, despite giving up just three hits while striking out six and walking four.

Mountain Home 2

Kuna 1

Next up for the Lady Tigers was a loser-out game with Kuna, after the Lady Kavemen had been shut out by Emmett in the semifinals.

Kuna managed to score a run off Michelle Reynolds in the first inning, but the Lady Tiger junior shut them down on just two hits the rest of the way.

Mountain Home scored their two runs in the fourth inning after two were out. Christa Stanton singled home Ali Hillman to tie the game at 1-1, and Jessica DesPres got the game-winning single, knocking in Stanton with a single.

The win improved Michelle Reynolds to 7-6 on the season.

Mountain Home 10

Bishop Kelly 1

The Kuna win put Mountain Home in the third-place game last Thursday against Bishop Kelly, which had stayed alive in the tourney with a 4-1 win over Vallivue after losing to Caldwell.

The game featured another great pitchmg duel between Mountain Home's Michelle Reynolds and Bishop Kelly's Britney Croner. The two had faced each other twice before, the last time just two days earlier, when B.K. won 1-0.

For three innings it was a scoreless duel, but the Lady Tigers broke lose in the fourth, sending 15 batters to the plate in the inning, and scoring 10 runs. That was more than enough for Michelle Reynolds, who scattered six hits while limiting the Lady Knights to just one run for her eighth win on the season.

The win represented the first Mountain Home win over Bishop Kelly in seven years, as Mountain Home coach Joy Memmelaar indicated the last win over Bishop Kelly was in 1997.

Michelle Reynolds and Christa Stanton both had two hits in the game, Stanton had two RBIs, Reynolds, one. Des Walden had a two-run single, Cathy Gilbert an RBI single, Paula Doerr, a double, and Kristin Brandli and Krista Gorman also had hits.

With the win, Mountain Home finished third in the district, and traveled north to Lewiston for a Saturday game with Post Falls, the north Idaho runner-up.

Post Falls 4

Mountain Home 1

Michelle Reynolds was involved in another pitching duel Saturday, this time with Post Falls' Katie Ness.

The Lady Tigers got to Ness for a run in the top of the second and Post Falls scored two in the bottom half. They added two more in the fourth to make it 4-1.

Mountain Home got back-to-back singles in the top of the seventh with no one out, but a line-drive led to a double play, and Ness ended the threat and the game with a strikeout, her seventh of the game.

Michelle Reynolds had two hits in the game, Christa Stanton and Cathy Gilbert also had hits. Reynolds finished the season with an 8-7 won-loss record.