Lady Tigers roar past Skyview, falter in semi-finals

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers opened the District III 4A girls basketball tournament with a win over Skyview, but ran into a hot-shooting Middleton team in the semi-finals.

Mountain Home 47, Skyview 36

The Lady Tigers opened the tournament with a 47-36 win over Skyview last Wednesday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

The Lady Tigers used a 9-0 run to close out the first quarter and take an 11-4 lead into the second quarter.

In the second quarter, Mountain Home built its lead to 20-8, before the Lady Hawks hit back-to-back treys to cut the lead to 20-14 at the half.

Skyview managed to tie the game a couple times in the third quarter and led briefly on a couple occasions, but each time they did the Lady Tigers would regain the lead.

Mountain Home led 29-27 heading into the fourth quarter and pulled away for a 47-36 win.

Mountain Home Coach Brent Keener was pleased with the win.

"I thought it was a pretty good effort. I was pleased with the way we played. We got a little stagnant in the second quarter, but I thought we finished extremely strong."

Keesha Janis-Gibson and Rachel Warila both scored in double figures. Gibson had 17 and Warila 13.

Dakota Barrie added five, Courtney Christiansen and Jessica Liercke both scored four, Jacci Cristobal three and Hailey Belt added one point.

Mountain Home shot 36 percent (17/47) from the field, hitting only one of nine treys (11 percent). They shot 67 percent (12/18) from the free-throw line, including eight of 11 in the fourth quarter.

Skyview shot just 28 percent (13/46) from the field, and made just four of 24 (17 percent) on treys. They hit six of eight (75 percent) from the foul line.

Mountain Home won the battle on the boards 31-26, led by Dakota Barrie with nine, Keesha Janis-Gibson with eight and Rachel Warila with seven.

Middleton 66, Mountain Home 36

A sizzling shooting display in the second quarter by Middleton proved to be too much for the Lady Tigers Saturday night as they lost to the Lady Vikings 66-36 in the semi-finals.

Mountain Home played with the Lady Vikings in the first quarter, coming back from a 5-0 deficit to take an 8-7 lead, and led again, 11-9, with 52 seconds left in the quarter. A three-pointer and a basket by Middleton put them up 14-11 after a quarter.

Then came the second quarter, with Middleton put on a shooting exhibition, hitting nine of 12 shots, including five of six from three-point range.

When the buzzer sounded ending the second quarter, Middleton had put up 25 points to just six for Mountain Home to go into the locker room with a 39-17 lead.

Mountain Home was not able to mount much of a rally in the second half, with Middleton leading 47-23 after three and the Lady Vikings closing the game on a 6-0 run to make it a 66-36 final.

Coach Keener agreed that second quarter proved to be their downfall.

"Yeah, they really shot it well in that second quarter, and you don't see that too often in girls games -- seven threes in a half -- that's impressive shooting. That's hard to contend with when they shoot it that well."

Dakota Barrie led the Lady Tigers with 17 points. Rachel Warila added eight, Keesha Janis-Gibson six, Jessica Liercke three and Emilee Schetzle two.

Mountain Home shot 29 percent (12/42) from the field, and hit two of 12 (17 percent) treys. The girls shot 71 percent (10 of 14) from the free-throw line.

Middleton finished the game shooting 44 percent (25/57) from the field and 40 percent (8/20) on threes. They shot 80 percent (8/10) from the foul line.

Middleton also controlled the boards, outrebounding the Lady Tigers 32-23. Keesha Janis-Gibson and Emilee Schetzle led Mountain Home with six rebounds each.

The loss put the Lady Tigers in the consolation bracket and three wins away from a state tourney berth.

"We've got to know that the season's not over," said Coach Keener.

"We can still get there, it's just a little tougher route, but we we've got to be ready to go Tuesday."

The Lady Tigers faced Kuna Tuesday night in a loser-out game.

A win would put them in the third-place game on Thursday at Nampa, and a win there would send them to Burley on Saturday at 1 p.m. to face the District VI runner-up for a final state tourney berth.