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Lady Tigers win district crown, advance to state
The Mountain Home Lady Tigers continued their dominance over Southern Idaho Conference teams in the District III 4A Softball Tournament, beating three teams on their way to the district crown.
Their opponents did not score a single run against them as Tiger pitcher Nickayla Skinner turned in three stellar performances on the mound and at the plate.
Mountain Home 15, Bishop Kelly 0
Mountain Home opened the district tourney at home against Bishop Kelly on Monday and made quick work of the Lady Knights, 15-0 in five innings.
Madison Siefferman led a 19-hit attack with four hits, including a triple, and drove in one run. Charde Huntington and Rachel Warila both had three hits, including doubles.Huntington drove in three runs and Warila one. Arlene Futch, Jennica Quintal, Courtney Christiansen and Lindsay Sessions each had two hits. Futch and Quintal had triples and each drove in a run. Christiansen and Sessions both had doubles and drove in two runs each. Nickayla Skinner had a double and two RBIs. On the mound she blanked Bishop Kelly on just one hit while striking out 12.
Mountain Home Lady Tiger coach Chris Asbury was pleased with the win.
"It feels good to get that first one out of the way and move on, re-evaluate things and focus on our next opponent."
Mountain Home 13, Middleton 0
The Lady Tigers faced Middleton at home in the district semi-finals on Tuesday, and after scoring single runs in the first and second innings, broke it open with eight runs in the third inning, going on to win it 13-0 in five innings.
Jennica Quintal. Nickayla Skinner and Courtney Christiansen each had two hits. Quintal drove in two runs, Skinner had a double and three RBIs, and Christiansen doubled and drove in two runs.
Charde Huntington and Megan Kelly both had triples, Huntington's drove in two runs. Rachel Warila had an RBI-double. Madison Siefferman and Arlene Futch also had hits and Siefferman had an RBI.
Nickayla Skinner gave up just three hits in the shutout, striking out 10 batters.
"I'm not disappointed by the performance whatsoever," Coach Asbury said. "I thought we came out and came alive in the third and fourth.
"There's a few little technical mistakes we need to clean up, but I look forward to whomever steps in front of us on Thursday."
Mountain Home 4, Kuna 0
The Lady Tigers faced Kuna in the district championship game, on Thursday at Skyview and beat them for the fourth straight time this year, this time 4-0.
Mountain Home had loaded the bases with no outs in the first inning when Nickayla Skinner doubled to the center field fence to score two runs. With Megan Kelly being hit by a pitch, the bases were again loaded, but Kuna pitcher Ashleigh Arizana pitched out of the inning with no further runs scored.
Mountain Home got two more runs in the third, Megan Kelly tripling in one and Lindsay Sessions' sacrifice fly to left to score the other. That would be all the runs Mountain Home would get off Arizana this time. But it was enough, as Nickayla Skinner shut out Kuna on three hits, striking out 11.
Nickayla Skinner, Megan Kelly, Madison Siefferman and Arlene Futch each had two hits in the game.Skinner had a double and two RBIs, Kelly had a double and triple and one RBI and Futch had a double.
Coach Asbury was proud of his Lady Tigers and their effort against Kuna.
"I feel, honestly, very privileged to have coached these seniors. You know, they've made my job this year extremely easy. We would have liked to go out and score a few more runs tonight to take the blood pressure down a little bit, but four (district titles) in a row in anything is pretty darn tough, so it's very special and I appreciate everything these girls have done."
The Lady Tigers take a 24-2 overall record to state and open against Pocatello Thursday afternoon at 5 p.m.
Coach Asbury feels good about his girls chances of repeating as state champions.
"Our mind-set right now is that the state championship goes through us, so we have to beat them all in order to get there. That's our goal."