Tigers snap losing streak in OT win

The Mountain Home Tigers snapped their six game losing streak last Friday night, downing the Emmett Huskies in double overtime.

Mountain Home 58, Emmett 55 (2 OT)

After seeing a number of games get away from them lately in the end, the Mountain Home Tigers took charge in the second overtime and downed the Emmett Huskies 58-55 Friday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

The Tigers took a 15-13 lead after a quarter and were up 21-17 at the half. A 9-0 run in the first two minutes of the third quarter put the Tigers up, 30-19, and they stretched it to 41-26, heading into the fourth quarter.

The Tigers had their biggest lead of the night when Colton Zamora scored with 7:05 left in regulation to push the lead to 43-26 and it looked like the Tigers had regained their game that had somewhat left them after the Christmas break.

But the Emmett Huskies, who had gone from an 0-7 start to win five of seven games in January, came to life in the fourth quarter. Cameron Gilmore, who led all scorers with 21 points, scored 13 of them in the fourth quarter as the Huskies roared back to tie the game at 46-46 with 1:23 left in the quarter.

Colton Zamora put the Tigers ahead with a basket with 55 seconds left, but a basket by Omar Villacana tied it at 48-48 with 30 seconds left. Mountain Home turned the ball over their next trip down the floor and Emmett played for the final shot, which missed, sending the game into overtime.

Emmett got a trey by Luke Erlebach to go up 51-48, but Anthony Castillo answered with one to tie the game at 51-51 with two minutes left in the first overtime period. Cameron Gilmore scored with 50 seconds left to put Emmett back up by two, 53-51.

Mountain Home worked it inside for a shot by Tyler Wright in the closing seconds. His shot was blocked, but he got the rebound and put it back up to tie it at 53-53 at the buzzer, forcing a second overtime period.

Emmett took a 54-53 lead with 2:20 left when Omar Villacana made one of two free throws. A basket by Trevor Woodruff put the Tigers up, 55-54, with 1:22 left. Cameron Gilmore hit one of two free throws with 1:03 left to tie the game at 55-55.

Tyler Wright put the Tigers ahead for good with a basket with 35 seconds left and Trevor Woodruff hit one of two free throws with 24.8 seconds left to make it 58-55. Emmett missed on three-point attempts to tie and the Tigers prevailed, 58-55.

Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot was happy to get the win.

"That was quite a battle. I'm not happy with how we played down the stretch of regulation, but you do have to give a little credit to Emmett there. They came after it with a lot of hustle, a lot of scrap, and they (the officials) were letting that go, and they made a lot of plays, and we kind of sat there and let them make a lot of plays.

"I thought we were playing a lot not to lose, instead of playing to win. And that's what we said when it went to overtime, -- 'now we've got to play to win,' and the kids made big plays."

Coach Kerfoot agreed, that mentally, the Tigers needed to pull one out at the end.

"There's no doubt that that was going through my mind at the end, especially since I thought we came out and played the first three quarters very, very well, and you could see some of the things we worked on, very evident, and then we got in that fourth quarter and they kind of turned up the defensive pressure and we kind of forgot about everything."

The Tigers had four players score in double figures, with Trevor Woodruff and Colton Zamora leading the way with 12 each. Tyler Wright netted 11 and brought down 11 rebounds, while Cody Ramos added 10 points. Anthony Castillo scored six points, Brock Morris had four, Aaron Hobbs two and Deion Brown one.

Mountain Home also picked up wins in the preliminary games, as the Tiger sophomores rolled to a 68-15 win and the JV Tigers won 52-20.

Middleton 45, Mountain Home 27

The Tigers had a frigid night of shooting Saturday night at Middleton, as they could not get many shots to fall for them and came up on the short end of a 45-27 contest.

Neither team shot that well, but the Tiger shots seemed to have a way of rimming or clanking out. Middleton led 12-8 after a quarter and stretched it to 19-11 at the half.

Mountain Home's shooting woes continued in the second half. They fell behind, 36-19, after three quarters, and the Vikings stretched their lead to 43-19 midway through the fourth quarter. Mountain Home went on an 8-2 run to end the game 45-27.

"There wasn't a whole lot that we did very well tonight, and our double-overtime game last night, then our longest trip of the year basically for us (tonight) -- we didn't handle that well," said Coach Kerfoot. "(After) back-to-back nights ... we were tired, and when we're tired we don't play well."

Four points was the highest any Tiger scored at Middleton. David Bitrick, Trevor Woodruff, Brock Morris, Tyler Wright and J.T. Cristobal each scored four points. Anthony Castillo added three and Colton Zamora and Aaron Hobbs both scored two.

The Tigers, who were just 17 percent (5/30) from the field in the first half, finished with 23 percent (12/52) shooting, including missing all 10 three-point attempts. The Tigers had another dismal performance from the free throw line, hitting just 27 percent (3/11).

Middleton, which had handed Skyview its first conference loss the night before, didn't shoot that well either. The Vikings shot 33 percent (16/48), including just two of ten on treys. They did shoot 65 percent (11/17) from the free-throw line.

The Mountain Home Tiger sophomores beat Middleton in a close one, 33-31, and the Tigers lost the JV game, 45-38.

The loss dropped the varsity Tigers to 2-8 in conference and 3-11 overall. Mountain Home hosted Nampa Tuesday night and travels to Kuna on Friday night.