Kavemen club Tigers during 51-36 conference rout

The Mountain Home Tigers started well but could not maintain their lead last Wednesday night, dropping a 51-36 conference boys basketball game to the Kuna Kavemen at Kuna.

Down 9-6 with 3:36 left in the first quarter, the Tigers went on a 7-0 run to take a 13-9 lead into the second period.

They stretched their lead to 16-11 early in the quarter before Kuna went on a 10-0 run to go up 21-16. Mountain Home scored the final three points of the quarter to make it 21-19 Kuna, at the half.

Jeremy Hopper's second trey of the game put the Tigers back in front, 22-21, early in the third quarter, but it would be their final lead of the game, as Kuna outscored them the rest of the quarter 14-6, to go up 35-28.

Kuna built its lead to double-digits in the fourth and the closest the Tigers got after that was 42-34 with 3:06 to go. From there the Kavemen went 11 of 12 from the free-throw line to seal the win.

"They just flat outworked us," said Tigers Coach Brion Bethel after the game.

"That's what it boils down to. Our guys are doing the best they can, it's kind of hard to ask guys who only know general math to do rocket science, so that's what we're trying to do, getting these guys up to par where we need to be," Bethel said.

"We've got the break coming up, so it'll be a good chance for us to re-evaluate and work on some things and work on conditioning and work on the offense and just tweak some things," the coach added.

Jeremy Hopper led the Tigers in scoring with 10 points. Michael Daniels added five points, Jose Rodriguez and Bevin Wright both scored four, Tyler Senger three and Tyler Elliott two.

Mountain Home shot 31 percent from the field, hitting five of 22 of three-point shots. They were only one of five from the free-throw line.

Kuna hit just two of 10 on treys but shot a sizzling 57 percent inside the arc. They also shot 76 percent from the foul line.

The loss dropped the Tigers to 0-4 in conference and 0-7 overall. The Tigers head to Jerome Friday for a 2 p.m. game against the Jerome Tigers.

Mountain Home's next home game is scheduled for Jan. 2 when the Tigers host Emmett in conference play.