Lady Tigers struggle at net, fall to Middleton, Emmett

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers volleyball team suffered two close conference losses last week to Middleton and Emmett.

Middleton 3, Mountain Home 0

Mountain Home stayed fairly close, but were unable to mount any type of a rally to win any games at Middleton last Sept. 14, losing to the Lady Vikings in three straight games.

The Lady Tigers dropped the first game 16-25, fell short in the second game 20-25, and lost the third game 18-25.

Dylan Dean went 8/9 on serves, with an ace, a kill, a block and six assists. Krissy Elliott was 10/11 serving, Jessica Liercke was 1/1 on serves and had one kill. Hailey Belt was 5/6 serving, Brittany Ryan was 4/6 serving and had two kills and 12 digs, Stephanie Jewell was 2/4 serving, Jacci Cristobal had five kills, Dakota Dean was 13/14 on serves with one kill and Emilee Schetzle was 3/4 serving with one kill and one block.

During the match, the Mountain Home squad hit just 78 percent (43-55) of its serves.

Emmett 3, Mountain Home 2

Mountain Home served much better Thursday night at home against Emmett, but mistakes led to a loss to the Lady Huskies, three games to two.

The first game went back and forth, with 15 ties, but Mountain Home scored the final four points of the game to win 25-22.

Mountain Home was perfect on their serves in the second game, but trailed most of the game.

They were a point away from a win, at 24-23, but Emmett scored the next three points to win 26-24.

The third game saw Mountain Home shoot to a 20-13 lead but Emmett once again rallied to win 25-23.

Mountain Home jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the fourth game and led 14-4 midway through the game before Emmett came back to tie the game at 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26.

The Lady Tigers were able to pull it off, 28-26, to tie the match at 2-2.

In the fifth game, which only goes to 15, Mountain Home fell behind 5-0 and could not get any closer than three, at 5-8, as Emmett went on to win 15-10.

"It was back and forth and we just didn't push forward when we were ahead by a lot of points. We would let them play with us, instead of just pounding away at the ball," said Mountain Home volleyball coach Rachele Asbury.

"We've got to learn to hit the ball when we have good sets and we've got to learn to be smart when the set isn't quite right. We had some better serving than we had our previous games this week, but they didn't play hard enough to beat Emmett."

Dylan Dean was 13/13 serving, with an ace, four kills, a block, 21 assists and nine digs. Krissy Elliott was 19/20 serving, with three aces and three digs. Jessica Liercke had 13 kills and six digs. Hailey Belt had an assist, one kill and one block. Brittany Ryan was 23/23 serving, with an ace, a kill and 20 digs. Stephanie Jewell was 18/19 serving with three aces and 16 digs. Dakota Dean was 17/19 on serves and had two aces and a block. Emilee Schetzle was 15/16 serving, with two aces, eight kills and five blocks. Jacci Cristobal had two kills, one block and five digs and Kelsey Egusquiza had six digs.

Mountain Home made an impressive 95 percent (105/110) of its serves to 85 percent (98/115) for Emmett.

The match completed the first time through the conference schedule. The Lady Tigers are 2-5 in conference play.

Mountain Home competed at the Wood River Invitational Tournament last Friday and Saturday at Wood River High School in Hailey. They went 1-2 in pool play, losing to Twin Falls, beating Boise and losing to Burley.

In tournament play, the Lady Tigers opened with a 24-26, 25-16, 15-10 win over Filer then beat Wood River 16-25, 25-17, 15-5, before losing to Boise in two, 8-25, 17-25.

The Lady Tigers had a tri-match with Kuna and Nampa Tuesday night at Kuna, and host Bishop Kelly Thursday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.