Tigers lose first-half lead, trail Wildcats in 1-point loss

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

For the second week in a row, the Mountain Home Tigers lost a one-point ball game, this time to the Columbia Wildcats, 21-20.

The week before, the Tigers lost 7-6 to the Middleton Vikings when Mountain Home scored late in the game and went for two and failed.

Friday night's game at Tiger Field was much different, as the Tigers completely dominated the first half, although they led just 14-0 at halftime.

Mountain Home's first opportunity to score came in the first quarter, after Tyler Wright recovered a Columbia fumble on the Wildcats' second possession.

Mountain Home took over at the Columbia 42-yard line, and moved the ball down to the Wildcat five before the drive stalled.

Juan Silva's 23-yard field goal attempt was blocked by the Wildcats.

Columbia then went three-and-out on their next possession and the Tigers started on the Wildcat 48-yard line. This time the Tigers found the end zone, Tommy Miller capping off a five-play drive with a two-yard run for the score. Juan Silva's point after try made it 7-0 Tigers with 11:21 left in the first half.

Another three-and-out by the Wildcats gave Mountain Home the ball back and this time they took it 55 yards in five plays, Tommy Miller scoring from 18 yards out. Juan Silva's PAT made it 14-0 with 8:51 left in the half.

That was the scoring for the first half, which was dominated by the Tigers with 179 total yards to just 29 for Columbia.

Columbia made some defensive adjustments at halftime and pretty well shut down the Tigers running game in the second half. Mountain Home had 116 yards rushing at halftime -- 110 of those by Tommy Miller -- but managed just 40 yards rushing for the entire second half.

Columbia got on the scoreboard in the third quarter, which was set up by a 52-yard punt return by Jake Arslanian to the Tiger 30-yard line. Three plays later, Zach Littlefield scored from five yards out and with the PAT, Mountain Home led 14-7 with 5:15 left in the third quarter.

The two teams exchanged punts before Mountain Home got an impressive 83-yard, 11-play scoring drive, with Jake Hennessey connecting with Tommy Miller on an 18-yard touchdown pass. The PAT was no good, but Mountain Home led 20-7 with 7:05 left in the ball game.

The Wildcats then got a drive going that stalled at the Mountain Home four-yard line, when Tyler Wright recovered a fumble.

Mountain Home then went three-and-out and punted the ball back to the Wildcats, who took over on the Tiger 49.

Columbia scored three plays later, when a 41-yard pass into the end zone was tipped away from the intended receiver by a Tiger defender but the ball was caught by Heath Conger for the touchdown. With the PAT, the Wildcats were within six, 20-14, with 2:05 left in the ball game.

Mountain Home recovered the onside attempt by Columbia on the Tiger 48-yard line, with 2:03 left in the game. After a fumble, recovered by Mountain Home, put it back at the 46, Tommy Miller carried the ball to midfield as the clock moved under a minute. On third and eight a pass fell incomplete, forcing a Tiger punt with 44.7 seconds left.

A 12-yard punt gave the Wildcats the ball on their own 38, with 36.7 seconds left. Jake Littlefield connected with Jake Arslanian on first down, and the sophomore speedster raced down the sidelines 62 yards for the score. With the PAT, Columbia led with 25.7 seconds left in the ball game.

Mountain Home then started from its 20. Jake Hennessey passed to Brock Morris for five yards to the 25 and used the last Tiger time out. Hennessey then completed a pass to Trevor Woodruff to the Columbia 40-yard line. Hennessey spiked the ball with 8.5 seconds left to stop the clock. He then tried to set up the hook and lateral, but the pass was incomplete with 4.5 seconds left. Hennessey then threw towards the end zone and the pass was picked off by Columbia as the clock ran down.

"That was a tough one to take," said Tiger head football coach Brian Floyd. "We played a really good game all the way until the last two minutes. We did everything we wanted to and executed everything perfect and held them to eight yards in the first half. We played well in the second half, just the last two minutes we had mistakes that hurt us."

The Tigers rushed the ball 44 times for 156 yards, led by Tommy Miller, who had 142 yards and two touchdowns on 29 rushes. Juan Silva carried twice for nine, yards, Tom Hennessey had four yards on 11 rushes, and Jake Hennessey had one yard on two carries.

Jake Hennessey had his best passing effort of the season, completing 14 of 23 passes for 201 yards and two touchdowns. He had one pass picked off. Colton Zamora and Brock Morris both caught three passes, Zamora had 42 yards, Morris, 25. Tyler Wright and Tommy Miller both caught two passes, Wright had 46 yards in receptions, Miller 24 yards and a touchdown. Trevor Woodruff caught one pass for 35 yards, Deion Sanders had one for 19, Tom Hennessey, one for eight, and JT Cristobal, one, for two yards.

Columbia ended the night with 29 rushes for 95 yards and completed six of 16 passes for 144 yards.

Mountain Home falls to 1-4 on the season, and 1-2 in conference play. The Tigers host the Bishop Kelly Knights Friday night at Tiger Field. The Knights are 3-0 in league play.

"That's a big game for us -- a rivalry type of thing -- and we've just got to keep going, we've got to get refocused, and the kids understand that.

"We've just got to finish the game. We play 46 minutes of football (against Columbia) that was almost perfect. Besides a missed field goal and a missed PAT -- those two things there, we get them and the game isn't even in question, we go 2-1 in conference.

"We have Bishop Kelly coming in and we've got to get after them. They're a good team and so are we. We've just got to keep plugging away. The positives you can take from the (Columbia) game, there's just so many. We played well offensively and defensively, except that last two minutes there.

"I'm proud of the kids. They stepped up and they did everything we asked them to, and they played with heart, which is awesome.