Tigers' woes continue

The Mountain Home Tigers dropped games to Jerome and Columbia last week to run their losing skid to five straight.

Jerome 17, Mountain Home 16

Jerome 8, Mountain Home 7

Runs were plentiful as a pair of Tiger teams battled in Mountain Home last Tuesday, but Jerome escaped with a pair of one-run wins, 17-16 and 8-7.

The first game was the continuation of a game that was started a week earlier at Jerome before a snow storm suspended play. Jerome built up a 7-0 lead before Mountain Home scored four runs in the third and fourth innings to go up, 8-7, with Jerome tying it with a run in the bottom of the fourth.

Mountain Home put up six runs in the top of the seventh inning to take a 16-14 lead, but Jerome scored three in the bottom of the seventh to win 17-16.

John Kennison, Danny Brescia and Jesse Cobos each had two hits in the first game against Jerome. Kennison and Cobos both scored two runs, and Cobos had an RBI. Zach Petersen, Skylar Quintal, Skyler Podesek, Jesse Rodriguez and Levi Abrahamson also had hits. Petersen and Quintal both scored three runs, Rodriguez and Abrahamson both had four RBIs and Quintal had two RBIs.

Levi Abrahamson, the third of four pitchers, suffered the loss.

In the second game, Mountain Home scored three runs in the bottom of the third inning to take a 3-2 lead, but Jerome erupted for six runs in the top of the fifth to go up 8-3. Mountain Home plated a run in the bottom of the fourth to make it 8-4, but a seventh-inning rally fell a run short, as they lost to Jerome 8-7.

"It wasn't a great defensive effort," said Mountain Home Tiger baseball coach Mark Cotton of the losses to Jerome. "But I thought we showed some good traits as far as just being able to come back.

"We were down in both of those games and chipped away and offensively got some things done, but still it just comes down to execution -- hit and runs, getting sac-bunts down, and things like that -- that was the difference in the games, they got more down than we did, so down the stretch here we've got to be more meticulous with everything that we do."

Columbia 8, Mountain Home 0

Columbia pitcher Nate Emerson shut the Tiger hitters down Thursday at Columbia as the Wildcats handed Mountain Home its fifth straight loss, 8-0, in conference baseball.

Mountain Home's only hit came with one out in the top of the seventh inning when Skylar Quintal singled up the middle to break up Emerson's no-hitter. The Columbia right-hander struck out seven. The Tigers managed just four base runners all night and never more than one an inning.

Columbia scored two runs in the first inning and put across five more in the second before Skylar Quintal came on in relief of Zach Petersen and stopped the bleeding. Quintal had seven strikeouts in four-plus innings, allowing just an unearned run the rest of the way.

"Their guy threw a one-hitter on us, and he threw 90 percent fast balls. He was blowing it by us and we couldn't make the adjustments. We would get guys on, we couldn't execute anything," said Coach Cotton after the game.

"As far as their runs, I actually thought Zach (Petersen) threw really well, with their hits finding holes, but they earned it and we didn't, so now the pressure's really on us going down the stretch here in these next two games."

With the loss, the Tigers fall to 4-10 in conference and 7-13 on the season.

They close out their regular season schedule this week at home, hosting Caldwell on Tuesday, and Middleton today, May 1, needing to win at least one of the two games to make it into the district tourney, which starts Monday.