Lady Tigers split with Jerome

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers, who put together a string of five straight wins, then dropped three in a row before coming back to gain a weekend split with Jerome.

Nampa 4

Mountain Home 1

The Lady Tigers crushed a number of balls but most of them found their way into the gloves of the Lady Bulldogs from Nampa in a 4-1 loss at Nampa.

Mountain Home grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, as Whitney Hedgpeth walked with one out, and then came home on a double by Paula Doerr.

Ali Hillman pitched out of a jam in the second, when Ashleigh Dailey tripled with one out.

Hillman, who ended the night with six strikeouts, struck out the next two batters to preserve the 1-0 lead.

Nampa got to Hillman for three runs on four hits in the fourth inning, and added another one in the fifth.

Meanwhile the Lady Tiger bats were noisy, with fly balls and line drives, but they could not find any holes or gaps to score any more runs.

"We're back to the at-ems again," said Mountain Home Lady Tiger softball coach Joy Memmelaar said. "We're back to the drawing board, so let it hurt so we'll remember what it feels like so we can turn it around. We have Kuna on Thursday, so we need to get back to the drawing board, so-to-speak, and fix a few things and get going."

Ali Hillman fell to 5-4 on the season with the loss. She also had two hits at the plate. Paula Doerr had an RBI double, and Ashley Kipp and Dani Sloderbeck had Mountain Home's only other hits.

Kuna 1

Mountain Home 0

It was another great pitching dual last Thursday at Kuna, this time between Mountain Home's Michelle Reynolds and Kuna's Brooke Judy.

Mountain Home got six hits off Judy, and had runners on base in every inning but one, but could not get any of their base runners home.

Reynolds limited Kuna to just four hits, but two of them came in the fifth, when Britney Smith's single scored Ashli Hughes with what would be the only run of the game.

"It was a tight game," said Coach Memmelaar. "It came down to just one run, and we couldn't ask for any more. The girls played a nice game , hit a lot of balls that seemed to have magnets, but it was a good game. They all played well. We had many opportunities, but we just couldn't quite get them across the plate, but it was a good game and the girls played well."

Paula Doerr had three hits to lead Mountain Home. Kim Hamilton, Sammy Dodge and Trisha Van Meer also had hits. Michelle Reynolds dropped to 2-3 on the season, despite giving up just four hits. She struck out three and walked four.

Mountain Home 1, 11

Jerome 8, 7

In a battle of Lady Tigers, Mountain Home got their bats swinging in the second game of their Saturday doubleheader with Jerome to gain a split, and snap what had reached a three-game losing skid.

In the first game, Jerome got to Lady Tiger starter Ali Hillman for two home runs, the second one a grand slam that put the visitors up 7-0, and brought in Michelle Reynolds, who went the final 3 2/3 innings, giving up just one run, while striking out four.

But Mountain Home was unable to generate any runs off the Jerome pitcher. They did manage to put together a single by Paula Doerr, a double by Ali Hillman and a single by Sammy Dodge that scored Doerr in the sixth. But that was the only run they cold muster in the first game.

Doerr and Hillman both had two hits in the first game, Dodge, the RBI single, and Michelle Reynolds had a double and Kim Hamilton also had a hit.

Jerome continued where they left off in the second game, getting a two-run homer off Michelle Reynolds in the first to go up 2-0.

Jerome added another run in the top of the second, but Mountain Home came back strong with five runs in the bottom of the second, getting RBI singles from Kim Hamilton and Paula Doerr, and a two-run double by Ali Hillman to go up 5-3 after two.

Jerome scored two more in the third to tie the game at 5-5, and added two more in the fourth to go up 7-5, but Mountain Home fought back in the bottom half, getting timely hits along with Jerome errors to score four to take a 9-7 lead.

Mountain Home added two more in the fifth inning to increase their lead to 11-7, and Michelle gave up just one hit the rest of the way to get the win, to even her record at 3-3.

Dani Sloderbeck had three hits in the second game, Kim Hamilton and Paula Doerr both had two, Doerr had three RBIs, and Hamilton one. Ali Hillman had a double and knocked in three runs. Trisha Van Meer and Brei Draper both had RBI singles, and Jessica DesPres and Michelle Reynolds also had hits.

Mountain Home hosted Caldwell yesterday (Tuesday) and travel to Skyview tomorrow (Thursday), both games conference games. Mountain Home is 3-5 in league play, and 8-8 overall.