Tigers rebound from Middleton loss to crush Nampa

The Mountain Home Tigers bounced back from an opening district tourney loss to Middleton with an impressive win over Nampa.

Middleton 67, Mountain Home 57

A 23-point fourth quarter for Middleton helped the Vikings dash Mountain Home's hopes of an upset, as the Vikings won 67-57 in the opening round of the District III 4A Boys Basketball Tournament at Middleton.

The first quarter saw the lead go back and forth, with Middleton up 16-15 after a quarter.

Mountain Home got treys from Anthony Castillo and Colton Zamora to start the second quarter and take a 21-16 lead. They increased it to 30-21 with 3:20 left in the half. The Tigers led 34-28 at the half.

Mountain Home maintained its lead most of the quarter until late in the period when the Vikings rallied to tie the game at 44-44 heading into the fourth quarter.

Tyler Wright scored in the first 30 seconds to put the Tigers up 46-44. Middleton answered with baskets by Ross Waltman and Dakota Mortensen to take the lead 48-46.

Cody Ramos scored to tie the game at 48-48 with over six minutes left, but they would not score again until David Bitrick's basket with 1:20 left stopped a 15-0 run by Middleton and made it 63-50, Middleton. The Tigers came back to make it a 67-57 final.

"When we play under control and work five guys together, it looks pretty darn good," said Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot after the game. "I thought we got out of that -- a lot of turnovers there in the third quarter where the ball wasn't in our hands -- yet we were off trying to do something, we were trying to make the next pass and didn't have the ball secure yet, and a couple times where we're dribbling, they knock it loose and instead of securing the ball, we try to dribble out of it and end up losing it.

"All that stuff got their running game going, which was something we were trying to keep them out of.

"I thought we played a very good first half. They've got kids that can shoot the ball and they made some shots, but overall, the first half, it was working. That second half we just gave them too many opportunities where they got a look at the basket and we were on the other end of the floor."

Anthony Castillo and Tyler Wright both had new season highs for Mountain Home. Castillo scored 15 and Wright 13. Deion Brown also had a new season high with nine points, Cody Ramos added eight, David Bitrick scored seven, Colton Zamora three,and Brock Morris two.

Morris led the team in assists with five.

The Tigers shot a hit 55 percent (24/44) from the field, and were 36 percent (4/11) on three-point shots. They shot 56 percent (5/9) from the free-throw line.

Middleton hit 33 percent (5/15) of their treys, 46 percent (22/48) from the field and 75 percent (18/24) from the foul line.

Mountain Home 55, Nampa 35

The Middleton loss put the Tigers against the Nampa Bulldogs at home Saturday night in a loser out game. Mountain Home overcame a slow start with a 21-0 second-quarter effort to go on to a 55-35 win.

A sloppy, slow start saw the Tigers get down 12-4 in the first quarter. It was 12-6, Nampa, at the end of the first quarter.

Mountain Home stepped up its defensive play in the second quarter and Nampa got off just eight shots as they turned the ball over nine times in the quarter. The Tigers turned a lot of those turnovers into points as they built up a 27-12 lead at halftime.

The closest Nampa got in the third quarter was within 13 points on a couple of occasions. The Tigers led 43-25 heading into the fourth quarter.

Nampa again got within 13, at 45-32, with 5:25 left, but the Tigers were able to push it back out to a 55-35 final.

"It took us a while to figure out whether we wanted to play or not," said Coach Kerfoot after the game. "Then we finally got into it and we got going on a defensive roll, and then we finally started getting some good looks offensively. Overall, I think it was a pretty good job.

"I thought we did a real nice job of getting to their shooters. They didn't have very good looks. Compared to the other two times we played them, I thought we got to their shooters a lot better tonight."

Cody Ramos and Tyler Wright both scored 16 points to lead the Tigers. David Bitrick added 13. Anthony Castillo netted six points and Deion Brown had four points.

While shooting a cool nine percent (1/11) on three-pointers, the Tigers heated it up inside, hitting 73 percent (24/33) inside the arc and shot 80 percent (4/5) from the free-throw line.

Nampa put up 30 long balls but hit just four for 13 percent.

They shot 45 percent (9/20) inside the circle,and 63 percent (5/8) from the foul line.

The Tigers dominated the boards, out-rebounding Nampa 32-16. Tyler Wright led the way with 11 and David Bitrick had seven.

The win kept the Tigers alive, and put them against Kuna last (Tuesday) night in consolation play at Bishop Kelly.