Lady Tigers roar past Columbia

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers came away with a split of their conference basketball games last week, winning on the road at Columbia and losing at home to Nampa.

Mtn. Home 46

Columbia 28

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers started the new year off on the right foot last Tuesday night, downing Columbia 46-28 in conference girls basketball at Columbia High School in Nampa.

Mountain Home took the lead for good on a trey by Courtney Christiansen early in the game. They led 15-7 after a quarter and 29-14 at the half.

It was 36-19, Mountain Home, after three. The Lady Tigers held their biggest lead, 46-22, late in the game before Columbia scored the final six points to make it a 46-28 final.

Mountain Home Lady Tiger basketball coach Brent Keener was pleased to get the win.

"It's been a while since we've had one, so that's good. It was a good start. I think that first half we played pretty well, especially that first quarter. Overall, I was pretty pleased."

Keesha Janis-Gibson and Courtney Christiansen both scored in double figures for Mountain Home, with 14 and 11 points, respectively.

Teresa Fredell added eight points, Emilee Schetzle four, Selena Foster three, and Hailey Belt, Madi Karst and Tessa Pachner each had two points.

Mountain Home shot just 27 percent (16/59) from the field, hitting six of 20 (30 percent) three-point attempts. They shot 50 percent (8/16) from the free-throw line.

Columbia shot 23 percent (10/44) from the field, hitting three of seven (43 percent) on treys. They hit five of 10 of their shots from the foul line.

Mountain Home dominated the boards, 51-21, with Keesha Janis-Gibson bringing down 17 rebounds and Madi Karst eight.

Nampa 50

Mtn. Home 39

Nampa went on a 15-4 run in the first three-and-a-half minutes of the third quarter and made it hold up for a 50-39 win over the Lady Tigers Friday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

Mountain Home led 9-6 after a quarter and went on a 7-0 run over the last four minutes of the second quarter to go into the locker room at halftime up 18-15.

Mountain Home lost the lead early in the third quarter, but tied it back up at 23-23, with 4:15 to go in the quarter. That's when Nampa went on its 15-4 run, helped out by three treys from Kendra Wilson to go up 38-27 heading into the fourth quarter.

A trey by Courtney Christiansen and two free throws by Marissa Streeter brought the Lady Tigers back to within six, 38-32, with 5:30 left in the game, but Mountain Home was unable to get any closer, losing to the Lady Bulldogs 50-39.

Coach Keener thought they lost their defensive intensity in the third quarter.

"We had trouble scoring the ball in the second half, but those three 3s were really big, and we just didn't come out and guard that shooter at all, so it was kind of disheartening.

"Then later, we gave them too many offensive rebounds. Those Jardine girls really started to go to the glass and we weren't putting a body on them, and we were just kind of standing there and let them go to work. They didn't finish every one, they'd rebound it once or twice and keep going at it. We've got to have more girls that want to go rebound that basketball. But then we had stretches where we got good looks, but the ball just wouldn't go down."

Teresa Fredell led the Lady Tigers in scoring with nine points, Courtney Christiansen and Keesha Janis-Gibson both scored seven, Marissa Streeter added six, Hailey Belt five, Selena Foster four and Madi Karst one.

Mountain Home shot just 22 percent (14/64) from the field for the game and just 10 percent (2/20) in the fourth quarter. They hit just 19 percent (3/16) on three-point shots, but hit 80 percent (8/10) from the free-throw line.

Nampa shot 31 percent (19/61) from the field, including 29 percent (6/21) on treys. They shot a frigid 32 percent (6/19) from the foul line.

Nampa edged the Lady Tigers 43-42 on the boards, with the Jardine twins accounting for 29 of their 43.

Hailey Belt and Madi Karst led Mountain Home with eight boards piece, while Selena Foster and Emily Schetzle both had six.

The loss dropped the Lady Tigers to 4-6 in conference and 4-10 overall. They hosted Caldwell Tuesday night, host Skyview on Thursday night and go to Bishop Kelly on Saturday.