Mavericks launch 21-2 opening salvo to crush Tigers

The Mountain View Mavericks shot out to a 21-2 first quarter lead on their way to a 61-25 boys basketball win over the Mountain Home Tigers last Tuesday night at Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

Mountain Home's only points in the first quarter were a basket by Aaron Hobbs with 4:30 left in the quarter. The Mavericks went on a 19-0 run after Hobbs' basket to increase their lead to 26-2 before Mountain Home scored again on Anthony Barboza's basket with 4:06 left in the first half.

Mountain Home got some shots to drop the rest of the quarter, and had cut the deficit to 15, at 30-15, before the Mavericks scored the final five points of the half to go up 35-15.

Tyler Wright's basket to start the third quarter pulled the Tigers to within 18, at 35-17, and that would be the closest they would get the rest of the night. It was 48-23, Mavericks, after three, and it ended 61-25.

"They get after it and play pretty good defense, and pretty much had us stymied all the way around," said Tiger coach Tony Kerfoot after the game. "We've got to get a lot stronger. We couldn't even move. We'd try to go somewhere and we'd just be glued to the floor. They pretty much grabbed us and put us there, and they were allowed to do that all night long. We're not strong enough to do much about that, or at least that's what it looked like tonight."

Tyler Casey led the Mountain Home scoring with seven points. Anthony Barboza, Tyler Wright, Ricky Castillo and Aaron Hobbs had four points each and Anthony Castillo added two points.

Mountain Home shot 31 percent (8/26) from the field, including going 0/5 on three-point attempts. They shot 64 percent (9/14) from the free-throw line.

Mountain View shot a sizzling 50 percent (24/48), including 6 of 16 treys. They also hit 64 percent (7/11) of their free throws.

Once again, turnovers hurt Mountain Home, as they had 27 for the game to 14 for Mountain View.

The Tigers had a week to prepare for Tuesday night's game at Wood River. Coach Kerfoot planned to use that to work out some kinks.

"I saw a lot of things the other night (Saturday at Rocky Mountain) that we needed to improve on, and one practice wasn't enough to do that, so it will be good to have some time to work on some things."

The Tigers are home tonight against the Jerome Tigers, and open their conference season next Tuesday, Dec. 14, against Skyview.