Mountain Home sweeps Jerome

The Mountain Home Tigers made it a season sweep of the Jerome Tigers in boys basketball last Tuesday night, downing them 36-23 at Jerome.

Jerome, hurt by Jarek Schetzle's 24 points and 11 rebounds in a 55-26 loss at Mountain Home a week earlier, packed the middle, making it difficult for Mountain Home to get the ball inside to the six-foot, 10-inch post, and inviting Mountain Home to shoot from the outside.

The result was Mountain Home putting up almost twice as many three-point shots than two-pointers (30-17), but with limited success. Yet the Mountain Home defense was in evidence, as Mountain Home jumped out to the lead and built on it throughout the game.

Mountain Home grabbed an 8-5 lead after a quarter and led 20-12 at the half. They were up 30-21 after three and, despite scoring just six points in the fourth quarter, held Jerome to just two points over the final eight minutes for the 36-23 win.

"It wasn't a very pretty game, but the guys played hard all night and never let up," said Mountain Home Tigers basketball coach Brion Bethel. "We got plenty of good looks, just couldn't get anything to go in. In years past, we would have lost games like that. I'm very happy with the effort and the resilience our guys showed."

Jermaine Smith led Mountain Home's scoring with nine points. Jymon Garretson netted seven, Marcus Egusquiza and Christen Riedel both scored six points, Jarek Schetzle added four points and nine rebounds, and Brion Bethel Jr. and Tyler Park each added two points.

Mountain Home shot just 28 percent from the field, hitting just six of 30 three-pointers. They did not fare that well from the free-throw line, either, hitting just four of 16 for 25 percent.

Jerome also shot 28 percent from the field, hitting just two of 11 long balls. They also shot poorly from the foul line, hitting just three of 10 for 30 percent.

Mountain Home is back on the road this week. They played at Gooding Monday night and go to Minico on Friday night.

The Tigers will be without the services of AJ Woodruff, who went down with an injury in the Jerome game. Coach Bethel said AJ has a "severely sprained ankle and bruised knee," and will be out "for two to three weeks."

Mountain Home will take the Christmas holidays off, and then go to the Twin Falls holiday tourney Dec. 29-31.