Lady Tigers snap 30-game losing streak

It finally ended. Mountain Home's win over Nampa last week snapped a 30-game losing skid for the Mountain Home Lady Tiger basketball team.

Mountain Home 42

Nampa 33

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers did something last Thursday night that they had not done in 30 prior games -- win.

The Lady Tigers pulled away in the second quarter to build up a lead, and went on to beat Nampa, 42-33. Not since Jan. 22, 2004, when they beat Kuna 46-28 at Mountain Home, had the Lady Tigers won a girls basketball game.

Mountain Home fell behind in the first quarter, and trailed, 7-3, with 2:28 left in the period. Kaleena Bluemer hit a free throw, Sammy Dodge hit a basket, and Ashley Kipp sank two free throws to give Mountain Home the lead, 8-7, after a quarter.

A trey by Erica Stanton to start the second period, followed by a three-point play the old fashioned way by Stanton increased the Mountain Home lead to 14-7 in the first minute of the second quarter.

The Lady Tigers then went on to a 25-12 lead at the half.

Nampa was able to whittle away a bit on the lead in the third quarter, but the Lady Tigers led, 31-24 heading into the final quarter.

Mountain Home was able to build the lead back up to double-digits, and won, 42-33.

"It's nice to get that monkey off our backs!" said a happy Lady Tiger basketball coach Brian English, in radio comments after the game.

"We really didn't shoot the ball very well. We missed a lot of lay-ups. We were 13 for 54 for the game. The 54, I'm happy about, the 13, I'm not! We've just got to start working on it (shooting). They fought, and they played as hard as they could play, and that's all you can ask."

Erica Stanton, playing in her first game since the season opener at Eagle, where she went down with an ankle injury, led the Lady Tigers with 14 points. Marquina Gillium added 11, and led in rebounds with seven. Ali Hillman scored six points and brought down six boards, Jessica Egusquiza and Lisa Kellerman both scored three points, Ashley Kipp and Sammy Dodge each had two, and Kaleena Bluemer added one point.

The Lady Tigers shot just 24 percent (13/54) from the floor, which included 33 percent (3/9) from three-point land. They connected on 59 percent (13/22) from the free throw line.

Nampa shot 26 percent (11/43) from the floor, but missed all nine three-point attempts. They hit 11 of 21 (51 percent) free throws.

Jerome 52

Mountain Home 40

Mountain Home was hoping to make it two in a row Saturday night when they hosted the Lady Tigers from Jerome, but a 15-7 edge for Jerome in the third quarter gave the visitors a lead the local Lady Tigers were unable to overcome.

The two teams battled even for a quarter, with Jerome up, 13-11, heading into the second period. The visitors went into the locker room at halftime up, 24-19.

"We played a pretty good game, we just shot very poorly," said Coach English of the Jerome game.

Jerome shot 50 percent (11/22) from the floor in the second half, while poor shooting continued to plague Mountain Home, and they fell behind 39-26, heading into the final quarter, and Mountain Home was unable to cut into the lead that much, as the final score was 52-40, Jerome.

Marquina Gillium led the Lady Tigers with 11 points. Erin Mullen had a season-high seven points. Lisa Kellerman had six points, also a season high. Erica Stanton and Kaleena Bluemer both added five points -- Bluemer's best effort of the season.

Ashley Kipp and Jessica Egusquiza both scored two points, and Teysena Chatman and Ali Hillman each had one.

Mountain Home ended the night shooting just 20 percent (9/45) from the field, and that included just 14 percent (1/7) from long range. What kept them in the game was their free throws.

They shot just 51 percent from the line, but went there 41 times, converting on 21 of them.

Jerome ended the night shooting 35 percent (16/46) from the field, connecting on just two of 10 (20 percent) treys. They shot 60 percent (18/30) from the foul line. In all, 53 personal fouls were whistled, and the two teams went to the line a total of 71 times.

Mountain Home won the rebounding battle, 42-38. Both teams turned the ball over 17 times.

The Lady Tigers return to conference action this week. They were at Kuna Tuesday night, and host Caldwell on Friday. Coach English headed into this week hoping to pick up a couple more conference wins.

"Both teams have not won a game yet, both are struggling like we are, so we have a chance to pull a couple w's out."