Twin Falls fuels late-game rally to thwart Lady Tigers

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers went scoreless the last three and a half minutes of the game as Twin Falls pulled away for a 52-38 win Friday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

It was the season opener for both ball clubs.

The game was an intense defensive battle, with the game close up until the final two minutes.

Mountain Home tied the game at 2-2 and 4-4, with Twin Falls then shooting out to a 10-4 lead. Back came the Lady Tigers to within two, 13-11, at the end of the first quarter.

Twin Falls maintained its lead in the second quarter, from two to five points. It was 23-21, Twin Falls, at the half.

Kelsey Egusquiza's basket with 3:55 left in the third quarter gave Mountain Home its first lead, 27-25, but Twin Falls outscored the Lady Tigers 7-1 the rest of the quarter to take a 32-28 lead into the fourth.

Twin Falls shot out to a 39-30 lead less than two minutes into the final quarter, but Mountain Home battled back within three, 39-36, with 4:30 left.

Mountain Home scored its last points of the game with 3:25 left, on a basket by Keesha Janis-Gibson, to come back within five, 43-38.

Twin Falls' Josie Jordan got three steals and converted them into baskets in the final two minutes to stretch the lead to double digits. It ended 52-3, in favor of the Lady Bruins.

Despite the loss, Mountain Home Lady Tiger basketball coach Brent Keener saw some good things from his team, which was without Dakota Barrie, who is out indefinitely with a torn meniscus.

The Lady Tigers coach thought it definitely wasn't a 14-point ball game.

"That's a four-point ball game with two minutes left. It just got ugly at the end. I thought we played pretty hard," the coach said.

"We don't have the depth to make many mistakes. Rachel (Warila) got herself in foul trouble in the first half, and she's got to sit. Really, we've got seven varsity girls right now, and some girls splitting some time. We've got to get a little better leadership and performance by some of those seniors -- those are key.

"Defensively, we did pretty well," the coach said. "I thought we did a pretty good job on (Jazlyn) Nielson. She's a post that can do some damage, and our only breakdowns with Allie (Kelsey) is when we decided to leave her. We'd talked about that. We can't leave her because she can shoot it, but those are just mental breakdowns."

Jessica Liercke led the Mountain Home scoring attack with 14 points.

Keesha Janis-Gibson had a double-double, scoring 11 points and bringing down 11 rebounds before fouling out with 2:25 left in the game.

Kelsey Egusquiza added six points, Hailey Belt four, Rachel Warila two and Tessa Pachner one.

Mountain Home made just one of nine (11 percent) three-point shots, and hit 39 percent (11/28) inside the arc. The team converted 68 percent (13/19) of their free throws.

Twin Falls shot 17 percent (2/12) of their 3s, 37 percent (15/41) on two-pointers, and hit 59 percent (16/27) of their free throws.

Mountain Home turned the ball over 34 times for the game, but outrebounded Twin Falls, 38-24, led by Janis-Gibson's 11.

The Lady Tigers hosted Jerome Tuesday night, and travel to Eagle on Saturday night.

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