Lady Tigers post conference wins

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers opened their conference basketball schedule last week, winning two of three games.

Mountain Home 46, Columbia 35

Mountain Home exploded for 18 points in the fourth quarter on the way to a 46-35 conference win over Columbia last Tuesday in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Mountain Home went up 11-10 after a quarter and stretched it to 21-18 at the half.

The game was tied at 28-28 heading into the fourth quarter when the Lady Tigers outscored Columbia 18-7 to register the 46-35 win.

Lady Tiger coach Brent Keener was happy to get the first win.

"It's nice to get that first win. Defensively, against (Rhianna) Birch, we didn't do a very good job at all, but other than her, she was really the only one to hurt us -- she dropped 24 on us -- I thought we did a pretty good job rebounding against the rest of the squad and matched up okay with the other girls and contained them.

"Then offensively, there was a period in the fourth quarter there we had a pretty good stretch of about four minutes that really made the difference in the ball game."

Mattie Bennett led the Mountain Home scoring with 13 points. Jacci Cristobal netted nine, Selena Foster eight, Marissa Streeter and Madi Karst both scored six and Tessa Pachner scored four points.

Nampa 56, Mountain Home 35

The Lady Tigers were bothered by Nampa's full-court press Thursday night as they fell behind early and were never able to make much of a comeback, losing to the Lady Bulldogs at Nampa 56-35.

Mountain Home turned the ball over 20 times in the first quarter and fell behind 23-6 after a quarter. They trailed 35-13 at the half.

The Lady Tigers outscored Nampa 12-7 in the third quarter, but still trailed 42-25, heading into the fourth period. Mountain Home hit the first basket of the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to 42-27, but could come no closer the rest of the way, losing 56-35.

Coach Keener agreed their problems handling Nampa's press in the first quarter was the difference in the game.

"We didn't use the dribble very wisely and we got too deep in the corners when they were trapping in the first half pretty hard, and Nampa, being as aggressive as they were, they were able to turn us over too often."

Selena Foster led the Lady Tigers scoring with a season and career-high 18 points. Marissa Streeter scored six points, Tracey Gordon four, Madi Karst three, and Whitney Sandberg and Jacci Cristobal both scored two.

Mountain Home 35, Caldwell 24

Mountain Home went on a run in the first and second quarters that gave them the lead as they went on to a 35-24 win over Caldwell Saturday night at Caldwell.

Down 8-2 midway through the first quarter, the Lady Tigers went on a 16-1 run the rest of the first half to go into the locker room at halftime up 18-9. Mountain Home upped its lead to 30-17 after three quarters and kept the Lady Cougars at bay in the fourth for a 35-24 conference win.

"I thought it was a petty gutty performance by some girls," said Coach Keener after the game.

"We shot pretty well at times and I thought we ran things pretty well at times, also. There were a few times when we were out of control, but for the most part, we played under control."

Jacci Cristobal led the Mountain Home scoring with 13 points. Selena Foster added nine and brought down 14 rebounds. Whitney Sandberg scored a season-high five points, and Madi Karst and Tessa Pachner both scored four points to round out the scoring.

The Caldwell win improved the Lady Tigers record to 2-4 on the season and 2-1 in league play. They have another busy week of conference ball this week, playing at Skyview on Tuesday, traveling to Bishop Kelly Thursday night and taking on Emmett at Emmett on Saturday.