Tigers beat Kuna 23-19 for Homecoming win

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

The Mountain Home Tigers held off Kuna Friday night to celebrate Homecoming with a 23-19 conference football win over the Kuna Kavemen at Tiger Field.

The Tigers received the ball to start the first half, and moved it down the field until the drive stalled at the Kuna 20. Kyle Clark booted a 38-yard field goal to put the Tigers up, 3-0, with 8:19 left in the first half.

Kuna moved the ball from their 20 down to the Tiger 17-yard line before the Mountain Home defense rose to the occasion, sacking Kuna's quarterback on successive plays to kill the drive and take over on downs out at the 36.

After the Tigers went three-and-out, Kuna got the ball back and started on their own 48. The Kavemen managed to move the ball down to the Mountain Home 27 before the drive stalled. A 44-yard field goal attempt was no good.

Kuna started at the Tiger 48-yard line their next possession after a 44-yard punt return. Five plays later, Jordan Galloway hooked up with Justin Mashburn on a 26-yard touchdown pass, and Kuna took a 7-3 lead with 4:10 left in the first half.

Kuna tried an on-side kick which failed to go the necessary 10 yards, and Mountain Home had great field position at the Kaveman 46-yard line. Tyson Sessions capped off a seven-play drive with a one-yard run. Kyle Clark make it 10-7 with the PAT with 2:04 left in the half.

That was the score at halftime.

A penalty on the kickoff made Kuna start their opening series of the second half from their own nine-yard line. Kuna fumbled on the first play from scrimmage, and Kyle Clark recovered at the Kuna nine. Robert Daniels took it in from the two on fourth down for the score. The two-point pass try failed, but the Tigers led, 16-7, with 9:58 left in the third quarter.

That was the scoring until early in the fourth. After Ryan Durrant killed a Tiger drive by picking off a Jake Posey pass, Durrant replaced Galloway at quarterback and engineered a drive that ended with him throwing 44 yards to Kirk Miller for a Kuna score.

The PAT was no good, but the Kavemen had cut the lead back to three, 16-13, with 9:46 left in the game.

Mountain Home went three-and-out their next possession, and punted the ball back to the Kavemen, who took over on their 42.

Ryan Durrant led the Kavemen down the field to the Tiger 14-yard line, where Matt Ward recovered a Kuna fumble to kill the drive.

Mountain Home then went 86 yards in 10 plays, Tyson Sessions bulling it in from 11 yards out. With Kyle Clark's PAT, the Tigers led, 23-13, with 1:26 left in the game.

Back came the Kavemen. After a short pass ended in a one-yard loss, Ryan Durrant connected with Kirk Miller again, this time for 72 yards and a score. The PAT was no good, but with 36.7 seconds left, Mountain Home's lead was 23-19.

The Kavemen recovered the onside kick with 35 seconds left, but after getting to the Mountain Home 46-yard line, Ryan Durrant threw three straight incompletions, and the Tigers took over on downs with five seconds left and ran out the clock for the 23-19 victory.

"It was a little more heart-pounding than I wanted it to be, but I thought the defense stepped up when they needed to step up," said Tiger head football coach Brian Floyd.

"Again, we had some long plays on us, which a little upset me, but I was real proud of the front seven. Our stats said they rushed for 16 total yards. Kuna's supposed to be a big running team, and to hold them to that, that's pretty impressive, and we put a lot of pressure on their quarterbacks -- we had four sacks and Chris Knudson had three of them.

"The offense, you know, we're getting there. It seems like we're just waiting for that break-out game. I was really impressed with our last drive to seal it, and that was a great run by Tyson Sessions, an 11-yard run, and he just bowled through their guys and would not be denied."

Coach Floyd also wanted to express his thanks to the the community for all their support during Homecoming Week.

"I've been here four years, and I've never seen anything like it! It wasn't just the school it was the whole community. All the flags and banners and messages on the reader boards. It was just tremendous, and all the coaches and the players are very appreciative and we all want to express our thanks to everyone in the community for their tremendous show of support!"

The Tigers rushed for 200 yards on the night, led by Robert Daniels with 89 on 18 rushes and a touchdown. Tyson Sessions had 11 rushes for 52 yards and two touchdowns. Jake Posey had four carries for 25 yards, Zacq Hale carried five times for 17 yards, Nick Barrie, twice for 11, Matt Ward had two carries for six yards, and Chris Knudson had one carry for one yard.

Jake Posey completed seven of 13 passes for 62 yards. He had three passes picked off. Nick Barrie caught three passes for 40 yards, Brandon Doble had one catch for nine yards, Tyson Sessions one for seven, and Zacq Hale and Robert Daniels each had one for three yards.

The Tigers defense stopped the Kuna running game. The Kavemen had 27 carries for just four yards. Mike Fisette, Kuna's running back who had rushed for over 400 yards in his first four games, had just 39 yards on 17 carries.

The Kavemen put the ball in the air 41 times on the night, completing 17 of them for 284 yards.

Leading the Tigers in tackles was Tyson Sessions with 11. Chris Knudson had seven tackles and three sacks. Zacq Hale had six tackles and two pass deflections. Josh Driskell and Robert Moss both had five tackles, Kyle Clark had four tackles and a fumble recovery, Matt Ward had four tackles, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery, Robert Daniels, Nick Barrie, Luke Loomis, Reed Borgholthaus and Derek Thorton each had three tackles, Loomis a sack, and Thorton's tackles came on special teams play.

The Tigers, now 2-1 in conference play, and 3-2 overall, travel to Nampa Friday night to face the Nampa Bulldogs in conference play.

"Our scouts tell me they run a lot of Emmett's offense," said Coach Floyd. "They're real young, but every game you've got to show up every Friday. You can't take anybody for granted in this league -- it's the toughest league in the state -- so we've got to step up. We've got a very good opportunity ahead of us and the kids know that, and we've got to just continue to get better."

Mountain Home swept Kuna in football lat week, as the freshman team, picking off six Kuna passes held on to defeat Kuna, 8-6, and the Tiger JV remained unbeaten, rolling to a 45-6 win.

Kick-off for Friday night's Mountain Home-Nampa game is 7 p.m. at Bulldog Bowl in Nampa.

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