Jerome edges Mountain Home 55-51

In a game that saw the lead change hands 17 times and had six ties, the Mountain Home Tigers came up on the short end with their counterparts from Jerome, losing to the Jerome Tigers 55-51 at Jerome last Tuesday.

The first quarter saw the lead go back and forth, with Mountain Home up 15-13 at the quarter's end. In the second period, Mountain Home moved out to a five point lead, 22-17, with 3:20 remaining in the half, but managed only two free throws the rest of the quarter, and trailed 26-24 at halftime.

Jerome enjoyed their biggest lead of the game when Curtis Bell hit a trey to start the third quarter to push their lead to 29-24, but Keith Yagues hit back-to-back threes to put Mountain Home in the lead 30-29. The lead went back and forth, with Jerome up 43-41 heading into the final quarter.

The fourth quarter saw Jerome miss eight free throws in a row during one stretch, but the best Mountain Home was able to do was tie the game at 49-49. Jerome hit four of seven free throws down the stretch to hold off Mountain Home for a 55-51 win.

"We don't have anyone to blame but ourselves, really," said Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot in post-game radio comments. "We knew exactly where we needed to be and we didn't get there. Coming down here (Jerome), you've got to be 10 points better, and tonight we didn't ever get there. It was a lack of execution on our part. We tried to do too much stuff individually, we didn't try to include other team members, and we're not a very good team if we do that, and defensively, we didn't shut anything down. I was hoping for a much better effort."

Matt Maurer was the lone Mountain Home Tiger to reach double figures in scoring, finishing the night with 10 points. Brock Zamora added eight points, Keith Yagues scored seven, Brian Fields, Trevor Lawson and Steven Oswald each contributed six points, for Oswald, a new season high, Travis Eikeness had a season-high five points, and Jarrod Roberson finished the night with three points.

Mountain Home shot 24 percent (4/17) from three-point land, and 48 percent (14/29) inside the arc. Mountain Home shot 61 percent (11/18) from the free throw line.

Jerome connected on four of 15 (27 percent) on long balls, and were a warm 15 of 27 (56 percent) inside, and put down just 13 of 33 (39 percent) from the foul line.

Jerome won the battle of the boards, out rebounding Mountain Home 29-24. Brock Zamora led the Tigers with seven rebounds.

Mountain Home opened SIC 4A conference play last (Tuesday) night at home against Caldwell, and hosts Kuna in conference play tomorrow (Thursday) night.

Coach Kerfoot was hoping to use the Jerome game as momentum going into their conference season.

"We've got to improve. We've got to play better than that. If we don't play any better than that, we won't win a game in conference, so we've got to come back and fix things up a little bit. I'm hoping we can get regrouped. I liked where we were before tonight (the Jerome game). I don't like what I saw tonight."

After tomorrow night's Kuna game, the Tigers host Skyview on Jan. 7, and go to Bishop Kelly on Jan. 8.

In the preliminary game at Jerome, Robert Moss scored with a second left to give the Mountain Home JV a 58-57 win over the Jerome JV.