Lady Tigers fall to Mountain View, Capital

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers showed improvement in losses last week to Mountain View and Capital.

Mountain View 41

Mountain Home 26

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers started strong last Tuesday night when they took the floor at Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home against Mountain View, but a near seven-minute scoring lull in the first half did them in, as they lost to the Lady Mavericks, 41-26.

Mountain Home shot out to a 5-0 lead in the first two minutes of the ball game, and led 9-4 on a basket by Sammy Dodge with 1:42 left to go in the first period. The Lady Tigers led, 9-6, after a quarter, but would not score again until Kaleen Bluemer hit a basket with 2:58 left in the first half -- a period of 6:44 without a basket.

Mountain Home's only other points in the first half were two free throws by Marquina Gilliam with 50.6 seconds left in the half, as Mountain View took a 26-13 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Poor shooting -- they shot just 17 per cent from the field for the game -- continued to plague the Lady Tigers in the second half.

They trailed 36-20 after three, and after Mountain View went up 38-20 early in the fourth, Marquina Gilliam scored six unanswered points to bring the Lady Tigers within 12, 38-26, with 4:22 left, but it would be the final point of the game for Mountain Home, as they lost, 41-26.

Marquina Gilliam led the Lady Tigers in scoring with 13 points, but got little support offensively. Teysena Chatman added three points, and Jessica Egusquiza, Lisa Kellerman, Ali Hillman, Kaleena Bluemer and Sammy Dodge each scored two points.

All things considered, Mountain Home Lady Tiger basketball coach Brian English saw some bright spots to the game.

"We shot nine of 54 from the floor, and that did us in right there, but I thought, besides playing a bad second quarter, we did really well, overall. We got up and down the floor, we out rebounded them by 15, we just got to put four quarters together. That's one that got away from us. I really thought we could have won that game, it just got away from us."

Mountain Home connected on just nine of 54 shot attempts, for 17 percent, and missed all seven three-point attempts. They shot 53 percent (8/15) from the free throw line.

Mountain View shot 29 percent (15/52) from the field including two of seven (also 29 percent) behind the arc. They hit 56 percent (9/16) from the charity stripe.

Mountain Home did win the battle of the boards, 51-36, led by Ali Hillman with 12, and Marguina Gilliam and Lisa Kellerman, both with seven.

The Lady Tigers committed 27 turnovers in the game, but just seven in the second half. Mountain View had 18 turnovers.

Capital 58

Mountain Home 49

Capital outscored the Lady Tigers, 34-22 in the middle two quarters, and it proved to be enough to withstand a fourth quarter rally by Mountain Home as the Lady Tigers lost, 58-49 Saturday night at Capital.

The Lady Tigers trailed just 12-10 after a quarter, but fell behind, 31-21, at the half.

It was 46-32 Capital heading into the fourth, and the Lady Tigers came back strong in the final quarter to make a game of it.

"We played really, really hard and never gave up," said Coach English. "We made a big run in the last three minutes of the game and almost pulled it out. We had Capital worried there for awhile."

Marquina Gilliam and Ali Hillman both stepped up big for Mountain Home against Capital. Gilliam scored a season high 22 points, and Hillman hit for 10, also a season best.

Both brought down nine rebounds for the lady Tigers, who won the battle of the boards, 40-34. Sammy Dodge came in off the bench to score a season high six points, Lisa Kellerman had four points, also a season best, and Teysena Chatman and Ashley Kipp both netted two points, a season high for Kipp.

The Lady Tigers are off now until Dec. 1, when they host Nampa in their SIC 4A conference opener.

"That gives us almost two full weeks off, which is good because Erica Stanton was walking around (at Capital) with no pain in her ankle at all, so we're going to start her practicing Monday and we should be totally at full strength come the time we play Nampa on Dec. 1," said Coach English.