Lady Tigers set to open hoops season

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers open their 2005-2006 girls basketball season this weekend against Eagle and Centennial.

Brian English moves up from coaching the Lady Tiger JV squad to take over the varsity team, and despite very limited success over the past few years, he indicated the turnout was quite high.

"We had 47 girls try out for basketball for grades nine through 12, which allowed us to keep quite a few girls. Each team has at least 10, so we're really happy with that, and all four teams are manned up this year, and we're not short a team like we were last year."

Coach English has 12 girls on the varsity squad, eight seniors and four juniors, and he is liking what he's seeing so far.

"I think so! I think we're 10-deep. We've been getting some good pre-season play from Lisa Kellerman at the post, and Ali Hillman at one of the forward spots. Our guards are playing real well, and I think we're going to be okay."

The Lady Tigers open their season against four 5A teams before their conference opener against Nampa at home on Dec. 1.

"I'm not a big fan of that (playing the 5A schools), to be honest with you," said English. "I'd rather play some other 4A schools, but you have to also try yourself against some of the better teams and see how you stack up, too. We have to open up at Eagle, which is tough, and then we get Centennial at home, and those are two big ones right off the bat, but if we can play even with them, or even play close, that's a confidence builder for us.

"We have Mountain View after that and Capital after that, and we'll see what happens, but the big one to me will be Dec. 1 when we play Nampa here."

The Lady Tigers open at Eagle Friday night, and are home against Centennial Saturday night, and home against Mountain View next Tuesday.

Sophomore action starts at 4:30 p.m., JV action at 6 p.m., and varsity action is slated for around 7:30 p.m. each night.