Sophomore boys open district by beating Columbia

The Mountain Home High School sophomore basketball team closed out its regular season with a win and opened its district tournament action with a victory over Columbia.

Mtn. Home 45

Columbia 25

The Tigers had two 16-0 runs that helped them pull away for a 45-25 win at Columbia last Tuesday.

Mountain Home led 8-0 after a quarter, and stretched it to 16-0 in the second quarter before the Wildcats finally got on the scoreboard with 2:51 left in the half. Columbia rallied to within nine, 20-11, at the half.

Columbia got within seven points, 23-16, with 5:54 left in the third quarter, but would not score again for nearly eight minutes as the Tigers went on another 16-0 run to go up 39-16. Mountain Home went on to win 45-25.

David Bitrick and Brock Morris led the Tigers in scoring with 14 and 12 points, respectively. Christian Halbach-Patterson added eight points, Tom Hennessey had five, Matt Bernyk, Damian Soliz and Jordan Warila each scored two.

Mtn. Home 53

Columbia 21

Mountain Home went 11-3 in conference and earned the number one seed in the district tourney, and faced the number eight seeded Wildcats from Columbia again Saturday morning at Skyview. The results were the same, a win for the Tigers.

Mountain Home shot out to a 13-2 lead after a quarter, and stretched it to 28-12 at the half. The Tigers extended it to 38-18 after three, and outscored Columbia 15-3 in the final quarter to make it a 53-21 final.

Christian Halbach-Patterson led the Tigers with 13 points, David Bitrick netted 12, Tom Hennessey and Damian Soliz both scored eight, Brock Morris had five points, and led the team in rebounds with seven and assists with three. Taylor Phillips added three points, Matt Bernyk had two points and led the team in steals with six, and Jordan Warila and Lucas Marsh each had one point to round out the scoring.

The win put the Tiger sophomores against Middleton on Monday night in the semi-finals at Skyview. Mountain Home split with Middleton, winning at Middleton, but losing a close one at home during the regular season.