Lady Tigers' season set

Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers open their 2013-14 girls basketball season Saturday night at home against Mountain View.

Back for his seventh season as head coach of the Lady Tigers is Brent Keener.

"We had right around 30 girls try out, and we fielded three teams and we tried to keep as many as possible. We've got nine on varsity, nine on JV and I believe eight on the sophomore team" he said.

Coach Keener likes the experience he has coming back from last year, a season that saw his Lady Tigers go 6-17 overall.

"We do have quite a few girls coming back -- we have five seniors, which is nice. We've got five or six girls with a lot of varsity experience from last year, which makes a huge difference."

Coach Keener thinks the experience is just one of the strengths he sees in this year's squad.

"Definitely attitude -- this has been one of the most enjoyable groups, and granted it has only be a few days so far, but even this summer, their attitude's been tremendous. They come, they work hard every day, and their basketball IQ is definitely a strength also -- they catch onto things pretty quickly, and we can put things on the fly, and they're able to pick it up, which I haven't had with some groups."

Speaking of their summer program, the College of Idaho graduate indicated they had a busy summer with lots of games.

"It's the most games we've every played in a summer. We added some things, which obviously cost-wise was a little more. We made our annual trip to Colfax, we did all the local tournaments we usually do, but we also made a trip down to Salt Lake, and we did Utah State, so we played 40 games this summer -- we played a ton."

As far as weaknesses in this group of girls, Coach Keener says they do have some.

"Numbers. We've got nine, obviously, but a few of those girls don't have a lot of varsity experience. Size, definitely -- we don't have a lot of size and we've got some girls that are vertically challenged. Defensively, I think we might have some issues early on in the season, but I think we'll be able to do some things to overcome those eventually."

Coach Keener sees the 4A Southern Idaho Conference to be one of the toughest in the state, led by defending state champion Bishop Kelly.

"Middleton is definitely coming back to the pack a little bit, granted they've got Tulloch, which she accounts for two or three -- she is tough to stop -- she's a D-1 player -- but I don't necessarily believe they will be the favorite.

"I would obviously say B. K. first, they have a ton of depth, and they're only getting better, and they've got a ton of confidence after winning it last year. Skyview's going to be really tough because Bonner's back, and she should be healthy.

"Nampa will be tough, assuming the other (Jardine) twin is back, which I imagine she would be, and Middleton's obviously going to be tough. That's another thing for us unfortunately, in terms of weaknesses, not that it's anything that we can control, but our conference is absolutely loaded -- we've got four or five of the top teams in the state, so it's going to be a real challenge."

Mountain Home opens its season this Saturday at home against 5A Mountain View, and go to Capital next Tuesday (Nov. 19), before opening conference play on the road at Middleton on Nov. 20.

"Mountain View's obviously going to be pretty good," said Keener. "They've got Destiny -- I can't think of her last name -- but she was 5A Player of the Year as a freshman. She's pretty good. We saw her at Utah State this summer. She's going to be a tough one to stop. She's just like a quarterback on the court. She controls everything. She sees the floor probably better than any point guard we'll see -- definitely at the 4A level."

Action Saturday starts with the sophomore game at 4:30 p.m., followed by the junior varsity game, with the varsity contest slated to start at approximately 7:30 p.m.

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