Tigers open season with a loss to Nampa

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The 9th-grade boy's basketball team opened its 2008-2009 season last Wednesday by hosting the Nampa Bulldogs, falling to Nampa by 11 points.

Cold shooting and a tough Bulldog defense held the Tigers to only nine points for the first half as the Bulldogs pulled out to a 22-9 lead.

In the second half the Tigers got over their cold start and hunkered down to play some tough man-to-man defense. The Tigers outscored the Bulldogs 17-9 in the third quarter to cut their lead to five, 31-26, at the end of the third quarter. Unfortunately the Tigers could not overcome the Bulldog lead and they fell by the final score of 44-33.

Leading the Tigers in scoring was Alex Rodriquez with 8 points, Derek Doeff and Jared Day each had 6 points, Jake Hennessey had 5 points, Garrett Burton had 3 points, Chaise Hopkins and Tony McKenzie each had 2 points, and Sam Hem added one point to round out the Tigers' scoring.

Although they didn't score in the game Blaine Jewett and Aaron Menhart helped the team out with some solid minutes playing defense, Coach Brian English said. Two members of the squad that didn't get to play were Luke Filipovich and Tyler Knauth. Tyler will be ready to play Monday against Skyview and Luke is out with a football injury until January.

"I though the boys played a good second half," English said.

"This was our first game and in the first half we looked a little scared and overwhelmed. In the second half we seemed to calm down and play basketball.

"I have always said judge a team on how they finish not how they start, so I think we will come together and be okay. We have to cut down on our turnovers (29) and shoot better than 30 percent from the floor and 52 percent from the line. We have a lot of work to do but we will get better."

The team traveled to Skyview on Monday and heads to Bishop Kelly today, Wednesday. The next home game is Monday, Dec. 15, at 6:30 p.m., at the junior high gym.

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