Lady Tigers host opener against Nampa, Skyview

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers open the 2011 volleyball season Thursday evening with a conference tri-match against Nampa and Skyview in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Mountain Home varsity volleyball coach Rachele Asbury said the numbers are down, overall, for the volleyball program, but she has some good quality.

"We had numbers drop as far as the amount of girls that tried out for the teams, but the ones that did try out are good quality and we feel like we have some good talent in the younger girls on the freshman team."

The team kept a lot of freshmen together on the freshman-sophomore team, "so they can build some team unity, and hopefully that will transition for the next several years and kind of build from there," she added.

Asbury has six seniors, two juniors and two sophomores making up the varsity squad this year.

"We had a transfer student come in as a sophomore and we had an injury during the summer with Jacci Cristobal, and those are going to be big shoes to fill, but she's still staying with us, she's still part of our team. The group that we have is really looking well together so far in practice, so it's going to be exciting to see where they're going."

The 4A Southern Idaho Conference increases to nine teams with Caldwell moving back down from 5A. With the extra team, the schedule has more tri-matches this year and the Lady Tigers open their season with one.

"Tri-matches are always difficult just because of playing two league games in one night, and this year we have four of them," Ashbury said.

The Lady Tiger coach looks at Skyview, Bishop Kelly, Emmett and Middleton to probably be tough, but added, "really, any team every year, it just depends on the group of girls that come out."

Mountain Home in years past has played most everyone in conference tough, but has not been able to finish games to pick up many wins.

"Finishing is always a struggle, and we've been talking this year about creating a sense of family with our team, and we're hoping that that will help us overcome," the coach said.

The first match of the Thursday season opener starts at 4:30 p.m. in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.