Lady Tigers open season with jamboree

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers open their girls basketball season this week, starting with a YEA Jamboree tonight against Buhl, Glenns Ferry and Rimrock.

Mountain Home Lady Tiger head basketball coach Brian English indicated they had a great turnout for girls basketball at the high school.

"We had 60 girls try out for the program, grades nine through 12. We kept 44 girls."

Coach English lost eight seniors, and his leading scorer from last year, as the Lady Tigers try to improve upon last year's 11-12 overall record.

"We're going to be young this year. We still have six seniors and juniors on the team. We're getting Dani Dean back, after a year off, she was on the varsity two years ago. That will help us on the inside. Emily Moranda's coming up from the JV team, so is Chantell Crane and Hannah Zamora -- those were big cogs on the JV team that won 11 games last year, also -- and then I have Jessica Egusquiza returning, along with Ashley Kipp and Sammy Dodge, so with that group, I think we'll be okay."

The Lady Tigers finished 9-5 in conference play last year.

Coach English expects the conference to be fairly balanced, with Middleton and Skyview getting the edge.

"Our conference is going to be real tough, and I think they're all pretty even, coming off what we did in the summer. Middleton's got to be the team to beat, with that 6' 4" girl. I think she's going to be the big player in our conference this year."

Tonight's jamboree will have Buhl, Glenns Ferry, Rimrock and Mountain Home all playing a half against each other.

"With four different classifications here, it should be a nice little jamboree, and all the funds go to the Youth Endowment Fund, so that's kind of nice, too."

Friday night the Lady Tigers open their season at Timberline against the Lady Wolves.

"Timberline is very big, height-wise and width-wise, so they're going to be a big challenge for us," said Coach English.

Tonight's jamboree starts at 6 p.m. in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium. Friday night's action at Timberline begins with the sophomore game at 4:30 p.m. Saturday the Lady Tigers host Glenns Ferry, with the sophomore game starting at 11 a.m., the JV at 12:30 p.m., and the varsity game at approximately 2 p.m.