Tigers split victories against Columbia, Skyview

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Mountain Home Tigers came away with a split of conference games last week.

Mountain Home 56, Columbia 47

The Tigers shot out to a big first quarter lead and held off a fourth quarter Columbia rally for a 56-47 conference win last Tuesday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Mountain Home displayed one of its best starts to a game all season as the Tigers shot out to an 18-2 lead. Columbia scored right before the quarter ended to make it 18-4 after a quarter.

The Tigers saw their big lead dwindle in the second quarter but had a run at the end of the quarter to push the lead to 29-14 at the half.

Columbia again cut into the lead early in the third quarter but the Tigers pushed it to 39-26 heading into the fourth quarter.

Columbia managed to cut the lead to five, 51-46, with a little over two minutes remaining, but could come no closer, as the Tigers managed to push it out to a 56-47 final.

Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot liked the good start for his Tigers.

"I was real pleased with the way we came out defensively," he said. "Two things we kind of harped on a little bit going into the game was we wanted to make sure we got aggressive going to the offensive board, and then getting after it more on defense, and that really showed in the first quarter."

The Tigers coach agreed that with the big first quarter lead his Tigers seemed to let up a bit.

"That was my opinion also," he said. "I thought that once we got that pretty good lead, we kind of stood up a little straighter in our defensive stances, and all of a sudden we were a lot slower, and we weren't making the plays that we made the first quarter, and that kind of cut into the lead. In the second half, I thought we played protective, but we didn't have that kind of 'go out and get 'em' kind of attitude, especially defensively. Down the stretch, in the fourth quarter, we did execute fairly well, however."

Aaron Hobbs led the Tigers in scoring with 14 points. Anthony Barboza added nine points, Tyler Wright seven, J.T. Cristobal and James Simon both scored six, Tyler Casey five, Anthony Castillo four, Brent Sexauer three and Ricky Castillo two.

The Tigers, who made six of 13 three-pointers at Kuna last Saturday night, only connected on one of 13 against Columbia and shot 37 percent (19/51) from the field. The Tigers shot 57 percent (17/30) from the free-throw line.

Columbia shot just 25 percent (14/56) from the field, including 4 of 18 treys, and hit 60 percent (15/25) from the foul line.

Columbia won the battle of the boards, 40-32, with Tyler Wright leading Mountain home with 10 rebounds.

Skyview 63, Mountain Home 39

The Tigers stayed with Skyview for a half, but the Hawks pulled away in the second half for a 63-39 win Friday night at Skyview.

Skyview shot out to a 5-0 lead but the Tigers battled back to tie it at 5-5. A 7-0 run put the Hawks up 12-5 but the Tigers battled back to again tie it at 16-16 at the end of the first quarter.

Mountain Home stayed close in the second quarter and tied the game at 25-25 late in the quarter.

The Tigers had several chances to take the lead, but could not get the shots to drop.

Skyview's Kyle Dranginis hit a three-pointer in the closing seconds of the half to push the Hawks' lead to 31-26 at halftime.

Skyview quickly stretched its lead to nine, 37-28, in the third quarter. From that point, the closest the Tigers could get was within six, 37-31 and 39-33. Dranginis scored 10 of his game-high 23 in the third quarter as they stretched their lead to 51-35 heading into the fourth.

Mountain Home managed just four points in the fourth, as the Hawks cruised to a 63-39 win.

Tiger Coach Tony Kerfoot liked the first half effort, but said it takes four quarters of basketball to win.

"You've got to play consistently for four quarters," the coach said. "Against the bottom part of the league we can have a bad quarter and survive, but against the top half of the league if you have a bad quarter, the game's over. I thought they just out-played us in every aspect in the second half."

Tyler Wright led the Tigers with 10 points. Aaron Hobbs added nine, J.T. Cristobal hit for seven, Tyler Casey four, Anthony Castillo three and Brent Sexauer, Anthony Barboza and James Simon each scored two.

Mountain Home shot just 29 percent (17/59) from the field, hitting just three of 22 (14 percent) on long balls. They shot a poor 33 percent (2/6) from the free-throw line.

Skyview ended the night shooting 48 percent (25/52), hitting 6 of 14 treys and seven of 10 (70 percent) from the foul line.

Mountain Home did edge the Hawks 33-31 on the boards, led by Aaron Hobbs with 10 and Tyler Casey with eight.

The Tigers fell to 3-5 in conference play and 5-8 on the season. They host Bishop Kelly Friday night and travel to Emmett on Saturday night.

"At some point in time we've got to start working on trying to win two games in a row," said Coach Kerfoot. "We seem to struggle with that. We may get a win one day, but the next day we don't do a whole lot. We've got to be able to come and play back-to-back."

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