Lady Tigers fall to Kuna

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers did better at starting than finishing last Thursday night in their season opening volleyball match at Kuna. The result was a 3-0 sweep by the Lady Kavemen.

Mountain Home shot out to a 3-0 first game lead, and stretched it to 7-2.

The Lady Tigers led, 8-5, before a 6-0 run by Kuna made it 11-8 in favor of the Lady Kavemen. The closest Mountain Home got after that was 11-12, and then came up short, 20-25.

Game two started out much the same as game one,with the Lady Tigers increasing their lead to 8-2, on a service ace by Dani Dean. Kuna fought back to take a 9-8 lead, and Mountain Home tied it at 9-9, and 10-10, and led 11-10, their last lead of the night, getting outscored 15-8 to lose game two, 19-25.

In game three, the Lady Tigers started slow, trailing 5-0 early, and never was able to mount any type of comeback, and dropped the game, 11-25, and the match, 0-3.

New first-year head coach Sarah DeVore took the loss in stride, concentrating on the good things she saw, including the fast starts in the first two games.

"Definitely, the first two games they came out looking like they knew they could win those.

"We tried some different things that we're still working with, getting comfortable with the lineup and the different rotations, so I have no doubt as a team they'll come together and start to know their role and start putting that together on the court.

"We're kind of a new look, new attitude for the program, we just need to figure out what that means. If we can figure out how to bring it back up when that momentum shifts, we'll figure out how to play the game."

Service errors played a key in the loss, as the Lady Tigers connected on just 40 of 51 serve attempts (78 percent), while Kuna made 72 of 76 (95 percent).

Erica Stanton made 11 of 12 serve attempts, scoring six points and had three aces. Dani Dean hit on eight of nine serves, scoring three points, with an ace, three kills and and a block. Brandie Riggs had five service points with one ace on five of seven serves.

The Lady Tigers had their home opener last (Tuesday) night against Emmett, and travel to Skyview tomorrow night (Thursday) night.