Lady Tigers hoops start season with three losses

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers opened their SIC 4A conference girls basketball schedule with losses to Bishop Kelly and Middleton last week, and also lost to top-ranked Jerome at Jerome.

Bishop Kelly 51

Mtn. Home 39

The Lady Tigers were outscored, 25-9 in the middle two quarters as they dropped their SIC 4A conference opener to Bishop Kelly last Tuesday, 51-39, in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Mountain Home fell behind, 5-0, but battled back to lead 10-7 after a quarter, and looked like they were going to pull away when they went up 16-9 with 5:12 left in the first half, but scored just one point the rest of the quarter, as they trailed 24-17 at halftime.

Their scoring woes continued in the third quarter, as a basket by Dakota Barrie with 5:05 to go in the quarter were the only points they could get, and they trailed 32-19 heading into the fourth.

Mountain Home scored 20 points in the final eight minutes, but could come no closer than 10, and ended up on the short end of a 51-39 contest.

Lady Tiger head basketball coach Brent Keener had no clear answers for the loss.

"I don't know what to say. I don't think the effort was there for us most of the night, and I don't know why. We started off great and the fans were great, they were loud and we were into it, and then -- I don't know if we're getting tired -- but we just start fouling and reaching and sending people to the line. That's our big issue right now.

"BK is a team that lives off basically two things right now -- fast break points and second-chance points. That's what we preached for the last couple of days to the girls, but it didn't seem to help tonight."

Dakota Barrie led the Lady Tigers in scoring with a season-high 12 points. Rachel Warila and Francesca Hale both added seven, Brenda Hawkins scored five, Blas Lord and Shelby Posey each scored four.

Middleton 40

Mtn. Home 34

Mountain Home came up short last Thursday night at Middleton, losing to the Lady Vikings 40-34 in conference girls basketball.

The Lady Tigers had a good start, and led 7-1 on two free throws by Francesca Hale with 3:18 left in the first quarter. It would be over 11 minutes -- 11:15 to be exact -- before they would score again, when Blas Lord hit a trey in the final three seconds of the half to cut the Middleton lead to 18-10.

Mountain Home fell behind by 12, 27-15, in the third, but a 10-3 run in the final three minutes brought the Lady Tigers within five, 30-25, heading into the fourth quarter.

A 9-1 run by Mountain Home in the fourth put the Lady Tigers up, 34-31 on a trey by Francesca Hale with 2:32 left. It would be the last points Mountain Home would score in the game.

Middleton did not score a field goal in the fourth quarter, but cashed in at the free-throw line, hitting 10 of 13 in the quarter to end the game on a 9-0 run to win 40-34.

Three Lady Tigers fouled out of the game.

"I thought we did a great job coming back... the girls didn't give up," said Coach Keener after the game.

"We had some tough things to overcome. Shelby's going to have to learn how to play with fouls. She's got to understand that we've got to have her on the court, and Charde is no good to us on the sidelines. I know some of those are questionable calls, but we've got to learn to adjust, and we haven't figured that out yet this year.

"If we figure out that we can play for 32 minutes, and I've told them all along, but we have to figure it out, we can play with anyone in the state at the 4A level. There's not a team that we cannot play with."

Francesca Hale led Mountain Home in scoring with 12 points, Blas Lord, Dakota Barrie and Shelby Posey each scored six, Jasmyn Jewett and Charde Huntington both had two points.

Mountain Home made 10 of 17 free throws while Middleton made 17 of 25 from the free-throw line.

Jerome 41

Mtn. Home 24

A scoreless fourth quarter was Mountain Home's downfall at Jerome Saturday afternoon as they lost to their Lady Tiger counterparts from Jerome 41-24.

Mountain Home led Jerome 9-8 after a quarter but were down 20-18 at the half. They trailed by four, 28-24, heading into the fourth quarter, but could not get any shots to drop for them in the fourth as the unbeaten Lady Tigers from Jerome pulled away for the win.

"It's hard to win when you don't score points for sure," said Coach Keener.

"We're down two at half, and we're only down four at the end of three, but we don't score again in the fourth. The score looked a lot uglier than what it really was."

Shelby Posey led Mountain Home with eight points, Blas Lord had six, Francesca Hale five, Jasmyn Jewett three and Charde Huntington two.

The Lady Tigers fell to 1-6 on the season with the loss. They hosted Nampa in conference basketball last (Tuesday) night, and travel to Kuna in conference play on Friday night.