Lady Tigers struggle, drop match to Columbia

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers fought back from a slow start, but it was too-little, too-late, as they dropped a 3-0 conference volleyball match to the Columbia Lady Wildcats in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home last Tuesday.

Mountain Home started slow against the taller Lady Wildcats, falling behind 2-13, and never really got any type of a comeback going, dropping the first game 13-25. The second game saw the Lady Tigers lead early, only to fall behind 14-24. They battled back from there with six straight points, but a bad serve ended the game 20-25.

The third game featured 11 ties as the Lady Tigers looked to pull away for the win, going up 21-20. However, a bad serve again killed their momentum, and Columbia scored the final five points for the win, 25-21.

Mountain Home Lady Tiger volleyball coach Rachele Asbury said the slow start did them in.

"Too-little, too-late -- that's a good statement. We were cold and not awake yet that first game. They have some great hitters and it took awhile for our timing on our blocking to catch up to it.

"Towards the end of the night we were able to put our hands on a few balls, but they used us and were able to hit it off of us and the ball went out. If we can hold our hands in and be strong, we'll have those blocks, but the passing also has to be there. We were making our setter run around the court, even on free balls that should have been easy passes."

The Lady Tigers made just 79 percent of their serves, while Columbia hit 87 percent.

Nickayla Skinner had 11 assists, was 4/6 serving, had two digs, two blocks and a kill. Jessica Liercke was 5/7 serving, with an ace, six blocks and a kill. Dylan Dean was 10/12 serving, with an ace, six digs, four blocks and four kills. Lindsay Sessions was 4/5 on serves, had two aces and six digs. Blas Lord was 9/11 serving, with two aces, four digs, three kills and two blocks. Arlene Futch was 7/7 serving with four digs. Alexis Ruffing was 1/1 serving with six digs. Shelby Roberts and Tanya Roberts were both 1/2 serving and both had a dig. McKenzie had a block.

The Lady Tigers hosted Skyview last night, and travel to Middleton tomorrow night. They close out their regular season schedule for senior night next Tuesday against Emmett.