Lady Tigers' basketball season begins Saturday

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers open their girls basketball season Saturday night at Eagle High School against the 5A Lady Mustangs.

Mountain Home Lady Tiger basketball coach Brent Keener admits that he's pleased with this year's turnout for girls basketball.

"The turnout hasn't been too bad. We had right around almost 30 girls, so that was good," the coach said. "We've got three full teams, which is nice, and every team has at least nine girls, which is a good deal."

Coach Keener was happy with the first week of practice at the varsity level.

"I've been pretty pleased, varsity-wise, with this first week of practice," the coach said. " We've got a long way to go, but in terms of effort, I thought it's been really good. The energy's been great, the attitudes have been awesome."

But, he added, "In terms of basketball skills and sense, we've got some ground to make up."

With the 4A Southern Idaho Conference shrinking from nine to six this year (Nampa and Columbia are moving up to 5A and Emmett is dropping to to 3A), Coach Keener believes the conference race should be wide open.

"It's a smaller, obviously tougher conference, because some of the weaker teams besides Nampa left, but really, this year, we're down a little in the conference," he said. "We don't have a lot of studs or stars like we've had in the past. The only star player that we're going to have to play in our conference that I know of is Harrington -- Gabby -- for BK. She's really the only outstanding player that we will face, so I think, if we get better as the season progresses, I think we can compete with everyone."

The Lady Tigers' first three games are against 5A teams, starting this Saturday night at Eagle.

"Obviously, the first three will be tough, with Eagle, Borah and Boise," said Coach Keener. "But after that, the schedule gets a little easier, and we've got some games we can win -- Gooding, Kimberly and Jerome -- so I'm looking forward to that."

Mountain Home opens at Eagle Saturday night. Sophomore action tips off at 4:30 p.m. with junior varsity action slated to start around 6 p.m. and the varsity contest somewhere around 7:30 p.m.

The Lady Tigers' home opener is Nov.18 against Boise. They travel to Borah on Nov. 20 and are home against Gooding on Nov. 21.