Tigers struggle at home, lose to Jerome, Bishop Kelly

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Mountain Home Tigers dropped two more boys basketball games last week, with losses at home to Jerome and Bishop Kelly.

Jerome 71, Mountain Home 38

The Mountain Home Tigers got a rude lesson in transition basketball last Tuesday night as the Jerome Tigers downed them 71-38 in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

Getting many fast-break baskets on 11/12 shooting inside the arc, Jerome shot out to a 26-14 first quarter lead, and stretched it to 41-22 at the half.

The Mountain Home Tigers trailed by as many as 26 points in the third, but cut it to 58-36 heading into the fourth.

Jerome made it a 30-point game, 66-36, with 5:10 left in the game, and from that time on the clock kept running, making it a 71-38 final.

"Jerome came out and played pretty good," said Mountain Home Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot. "I think they missed three shots the first quarter and the whole first half they were on fire. It's pretty tough to contend with a team that comes in and shoots about 68 percent from the field -- although most of them were lay-ups.

"We did do a little bit of work on some transition defense to try to at least protect that part of it, but, no, it wasn't a good showing by us."

Colton Zamora led the Mountain Home scoring with eight points.Brock Morris added six, Anthony Castillo and Tyler Wright both netted five, David Bitrick, Cody Ramos and Deion Brown each scored four, and Trevor Woodruff rounded out the scoring with two points.

Mountain Home shot a respectable 48 percent (14/29) inside the arc, but made just two of 20 three-point shots while hitting four-for-six from the free-throw line.

Jerome hit 40 percent (6/15) of their treys, 57 percent inside the circle, but just three-for-eight from the foul line. The squad out-rebounded Mountain Home 34-22.

Cody Ramos led Mountain Home with four boards.

Bishop Kelly 54, Mountain Home 45

The Tigers opened conference play against Bishop Kelly and battled the Knights tough before losing 54-45 last Thursday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

The game featured 16 lead changes and seven ties.

Mountain Home pushed out to an 11-7 lead on a basket and free throw by Cody Ramos with 1:45 left in the first quarter, but the Knights ended the period on a 7-0 run to go up, 14-11 after a quarter.

Anthony Castillo sank two free throws with 4:05 left in the second quarter, to put Mountain Home up 19-17, but the Knights scored the last six points of the quarter to take a 23-19 lead into the locker room at halftime. After falling behind by six on a couple of occasions in the third, the Tigers battled back on a 7-0 run to take a 36-31 lead into the fourth quarter.

Deion Brown hit two free throws to start the fourth quarter, which stretched the Mountain Home lead up to 38-31, but the Knights battled back to take the lead. The Tigers' last lead was 45-44, when Colton Zamora hit one of two free throws with 1:50 left in the game, but Bishop Kelly reeled off the final 10 points, most of them from the free throw line. They were helped out by an intentional foul and a technical foul against the Tigers as the Knights prevailed 54-45.

"I guess we need to work on the last minute," said Coach Kerfoot in radio comments after the game. "We worked on a lot of other things to get us back in it, but we haven't had time to get everything crunched.

"I didn't like some of the things that we did in the last minute, and actually maybe the last couple minutes, but we were in the ball game, and I'm extremely happy with the kids.

"That's a lot of improvement from Tuesday night to tonight, and I thought we stepped up and played with them with a lot more composure -- it came apart a couple of times -- but for the most part, I thought we showed great improvement."

David Bitrick led the Tigers in scoring with a season-high nine points. Cody Ramos had a season-high eight, and Tyler Wright and Trevor Woodruff both scored six -- a new season high for Wright. Deion Brown and Colton Zamora both scored five -- a new season high for Brown. Damian Soliz had a season-high four points and Anthony Castillo added two to round out the scoring.

Mountain Home hit just one of 11 treys for 9 percent shooting, but hit 50 percent (14/28) inside the arc, and shot 67 percent (14/21) from the free-throw line.

Bishop Kelly shot 19 percent (5/26) on three-pointers, 36 percent (9/25) on two-point shots, and hit 81 percent (21/26) from the foul line. The Knights hit 12 of 13 free throws in the fourth quarter.

The rebound battle was tied at 29 apiece, with Colton Zamora and Trevor Woodruff leading Mountain Home with nine and eight, respectively.

Mountain Home is on the road this week. They traveled to Jerome last night, and travel to Emmett for a conference showdown with the Huskies on Friday.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: