Skyview crushes Lady Tigers in volleyball season debut

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers had a busy three days of volleyball last week, facing Skyview in the conference and season opener, and getting in plenty of volleyball at the Kuna Klassic on Friday and Saturday.

Skyview 25, Mountain Home 8

Skyview 25, Mountain Home 12

Skyview 25, Mountain Home 9

The Lady Tigers hosted Skyview Thursday night in the season opener at Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium and lost in three straight games.

Skyview took the first game 25-8, won the second 25-12 and made it a three-game sweep by ending the night with a 25-9 win.

"Skyview is a disciplined team with a lot of talent," said Mountain Home Lady Tigers volleyball coach Jill Peterson after the match.

"We struggled with serving and serve-receive and being able to hit around their blockers. We played scrappy defense, covering our hitters well."

Jacci Cristobal, Selena Foster and Janay Yulis each had two kills for Mountain Home.

The Lady Tigers competed at the Kuna Klassic over the weekend.

Friday, in pool play, they beat Garden Valley, Ontario and Melba before losing to Caldwell. Saturday pool play saw them lose to Kuna and Centennial but beat Parma.

They played bracket play in the Silver Bracket, beating Columbia in two sets and losing to Caldwell in three sets to finish third in the Silver Bracket and 11th out of the 24 teams competing.

"We had some mental hiccups which resulted in flat play for some of the games," said Coach Peterson, "but overall, they played well.

"The match against Columbia was the highlight. We played with passion and fire. Our passes, led by our libero, Dakota Dean, were overwhelmingly accurate, which resulted in a high number of kills. Unfortunately, we weren't (keeping stats on) hitting, but if we were, Jacci Cristobal would have had a career high, I'm sure. Janay Yulis also added a number of kills for us on the front row.

"It was a good early season tournament, and now we can get to work on improving for the season."

The Lady Tigers were at Columbia on Tuesday and travel to Bishop Kelly on Thursday.