Nampa edges Tigers for narrow 47-46 victory

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Mountain Home Tigers battled the Nampa Bulldogs tough Friday night at Nampa, coming up a point short, 47-46, in conference boys basketball.

Mountain Home took an early 2-0 lead, and led, 4-2, before some hot shooting by Nampa propelled the Bulldogs to a 16-5 run to go up 18-9. It was 20-12, Nampa after a quarter.

Nampa missed all seven shots they took in the second quarter and did not score, and the Tigers hit only one of 10 shots from the field, but hit four of six from the field to narrow the lead to 20-18.

Mountain Home managed to tie the game at 23-23 with 4:36 left in the third quarter on a trey by Kyle Kerfoot, but Todd Lewandowski hit two straight baseline jumpers to put the Bulldogs up 27-23. It was 33-28, Nampa, heading into the fourth quarter.

Nampa built up a seven-point lead early in the fourth, with the Tigers clawing their way back within two, 45-43, with 42 seconds left.

Matt Blackstun hit two free throws to push the lead back to four, 47-43, with 15.8 seconds left.

Jake Posey scored to bring the Tigers within two with five seconds left.

Todd Lewandowski was fouled with 3.7 seconds left, and missed the front end of a one-and-one, and Danny Snelgrow was fouled, and went to the free throw line to shoot the one-and-one with 2.9 seconds left. He missed, but Travis Gordon got the rebound, and was fouled going up for the shot.

With 1.2 seconds left, Gordon hit the first free throw to make it a one-point game, but the second rimmed out, and Nampa escaped with a 47-46 win.

"I've got to give credit to our kids," said Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot in radio comments after the game. "We got way down early on and the tempo thing, they came out and were shooting extremely hot and won the tempo battle in the first quarter, which made it a difficult game the rest of the way, but I thought our kids fought hard and got back in and had a couple chances to tie it.

"There's a lot of real good things we saw tonight. It's still very early in the season. I saw a lot of things from kids tonight that I didn't know. I'm still learning about this group of kids."

Jake Posey led the Tigers with 18 points, Kyle Kerfoot added 11. Nick Barrie had five points, Alex Campbell, four, Jordan Cisna, three, Jake Hiler and Danny Snelgrow, two each, and Travis Gordon scored one point.

Mountain Home took a 1-3 overall record and 1-1 conference mark to Kuna last night to face the Kavemen in conference ball.

The Tigers then travel to Baker City, Oregon Friday for a two-day Holiday Tournament, opening against Mac High of Milton-Freewater Friday night, and playing Baker Saturday night.

"I really don't know a whole lot about Milton-Freewater," said Coach Kerfoot. "Baker I've seen frequently over the summer and I know that they're the defending state champs in Oregon, and Emmett and LaGrande will be there, and they're pretty good.

"We'll have our two games, but we can also see some other teams play, and it kind of builds that tournament atmosphere, which I think is kind of very important, and it should be a lot of fun for the kids."

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