Mountain Home falls short against Caldwell, Skyview

The Mountain Home Tigers battled tough over the weekend but came up short during conference games against Caldwell and Skyview at Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

Caldwell 50, Mountain Home 47

The Tigers and Cougars battled to the end Friday night with Caldwell narrowly taking home the 50-47 win.

The game, which included eight lead changes and five ties, had Mountain Home up 12-11 after a quarter, with the score tied at 20 at the half.

The lead went back and forth in the third with the Tigers up by three after three quarters. Caldwell then went on a 7-0 run to start the fourth, to go up 38-34 with 4:47 left.

Brent Sexauer scored five straight points to give Mountain Home a one-point lead with 4:30 left, but Caldwell went on a 6-0 run to go up 45-39 with 56.5 seconds left.

A trey by Brent Sexauer cut Caldwell's lead to three with 43.4 seconds left. David Renteria hit one of two free throws to put the Cougars up 46-42 with 40.6 seconds left.

Brent Sexauer narrowed the deficit to two with a pair of free throws with 33.4 seconds left. However, J.J. Delgado sank two free throws with 20 seconds left to push the Cougar lead back to four.

Sexauer hit his third trey of the quarter with 9.2 seconds left to bring the Tigers to within one, but Delgado sank two more free throws with 5.6 seconds left pushed the Caldwell lead back to three.

Michael Daniels got the inbounds pass and heaved a shot just after passing the half-court line that rebounded out to the side to Dion Salinas. He threw up a three that was off the mark as the buzzer rang, allowing the Cougars to escape with the win.

Despite the loss, Tigers coach Tony Kerfoot was pleased with his team's effort.

"I can't fault us on effort. I thought we went after it pretty good," he said. "A couple times we were down and could have given up, but we didn't, and we still had a shot at the end to tie it up."

Last week's contest was one of Mountain Home's closest all season, according to the coach.

"I thought we made some plays down the end, defensively and offensively, and we still gave ourselves a chance to win," he added. "With a minute left, it didn't look like we had much of a chance, so that late-game stuff worked; just not quite all the way tonight."

Brent Sexauer led the Tigers scoring effort with 19 points that included all of Mountain Home's 13 fourth quarter points. Luke Filipovich added nine points for the Tigers while Michael Daniels had eight, J.T. Cristobal added six, Ricky Castillo brought in three while and Dion Salinas sank two.

Mountain Home hit 35 percent of its shots, going five for 21 during the game. The Tigers made 60 percent of its baskets from the free throw line.

In comparison, Caldwell shot 14-for-44 from the field, including four of its 14 long balls. They connected on 58 percent of the team's free throws, including 58 percent in the fourth quarter.

Caldwell won the battle on the boards, 39-23, with Luke Filipovich and Ricky Castillo leading Mountain Home with six rebounds apiece.

Hawks 50, Tigers 46

Mountain Home had another close battle at home Saturday night as they fell to the Skyview Hawks 50-46.

Skyview grabbed a 12-6 lead after a quarter and held onto a three-point advantage going into the locker room at half-time.

Mountain home tied the game at 24 early in the third before the Hawks went on an 11-0 run fueled by a trio of three-pointers. The Tigers trailed 37-29 heading into the final quarter but managed to cut the Hawks' lead to three with a minute and a half left in the game.

Skyview hit three of its four free throws over the next 45 seconds to up its lead to 46-40. Michael Daniels hit one of two free throws to make it 46-41 with 36.8 seconds left.

Forced to foul, the Tigers sent Daniel Slemmer to the line with 22.5 seconds left, and he sank both to up Skyview's lead to 48-41.

J.T. Cristobal knocked down a trey with 13.8 seconds left to narrow the deficit to four. Lane Robbins sank two more free throws -- he was 9 of 10 from the line for the game -- with 11.7 seconds left.

Cristobal scored again to make it 50-46, but the Hawks let the clock run out for the win.

"They made it real difficult -- they did a nice job of hitting their free throws at the end," Coach Kerfoot said after the game. "I thought we had flat spots. At the end of the game, we show up and are making shots. If we'd made those in the third quarter, we wouldn't have been fouling at the end of the game."

While there were plenty of times that Mountain Home's offense worked, including some key baskets, the team remained limited on what it did on offensive rebounds, the coach added.

"But our guys were trying tonight," he added. "That was the big emphasis before the game... to get them on the boards, and I think you saw us boxing out better tonight."

Brent Sexauer led the Tigers in scoring with 13 points. J.T. Cristobal had eight points, Michael Daniels added seven, Tony McKenzie had six, Dion Salinas and Ricky Castillo sank five apiece while and Luke Filipovich finished with two.

Mountain Home shot 36 percent from the field, including six of 22 three-pointers. The team shot just 53 percent from the free throw line.

In comparison, Skyview hit 40 percent of its shots from the field, and hit six of its 18 long balls. Skyview also went 16-for-27 from the foul line, including 11-for-17 in the fourth quarter.

Skyview outrebounded the Tigers 32-24, with Tyler Elliott leading the Tigers with five boards.

The loss dropped the Tigers to 3-9 in conference and 3-13 overall. The Tigers were at Bishop Kelly on Jan. 24 before they come home against Kuna this on Saturday.