Lady Tigers fall to tough 5A schools to open season

Opening the season against 5A schools is never easy, especially when it is the upper echelon of the SIC 5A, as Eagle and Centennial won against an inexperienced Mountain Home Lady Tiger squad last week.

Eagle 67

Mountain Home 28

Poor field goal shooting was the Lady Tigers' downfall in their season home opener against Eagle Friday night.

Katie Roelofs scored the first basket of the game to give Mountain Home a 2-0 lead, but it would be almost six minutes before they would score again, on Michelle Reynolds' basket with 1:43 left in the quarter, cutting the Eagle lead to 14-4. Their next basket came three seconds shy of a full quarter of basketball (7:57), when Lisa Kellerman scored with 1:46 left in the first half, to cut the deficit to 28-6.

The Lady Tigers, who trailed 31-11 at halftime, shot just 21 percent (4/19) from the field in the first half. They ended the night shooting 19 percent (8/43), hitting just four of 24 shots from the field in the second half, as Eagle, which ended the night shooting 42 percent (27/64), kept increasing their lead. It was 45-18 after three on the way to a 67-28 final.

"We have some rough spots to work out," said Lady Tiger head basketball coach Karen Kohring after the game. "We knew coming out our offense was not as strong as we need to be, especially against the 5A teams. Tonight I thought we struggled a little bit keeping all the teammates on the same page, on the offensive end. We need to have somebody step up at the point guard position, calling the plays for us and directing a little traffic, being the coach out there on the floor. Hopefully, it will come."

Kohring was happy with the defensive play of her team, which put a lot of pressure on Eagle all night long.

"The defense has never been my worry. I think we worked really extremely hard on defense. We do more of a scramble anticipation type defense, and it was showing tonight."

Kohring hopes for better things to come from their offensive efforts as the season progresses.

"We have to come through with some offense. We have to go to the basket, drive hard and finish it at the hoop. Eagle put a lot of pressure on us out front, and we weren't allowed to get that ball down to the baseline where we need to, to get better looks, so we need to improve on that."

Paula Doerr led the Lady Tigers in scoring with nine points, and brought down six rebounds, as Mountain Home out-rebounded the Lady Mustangs, 46-40. Erica Stanton added seven points and had seven boards. Lisa Kellerman scored four points and brought down four rebounds.

Kaleena Bluemer, Katie Roelofs and Michelle Reynolds each scored two points, Nicole Roelofs and Jessica Egusquiza both had one point.

Centennial 67

Mountain Home 29

Saturday night at Centennial the Lady Patriots took advantage of Mountain Home's shooting woes in the first quarter to run to a 21-1 lead.

The Lady Tigers got their shooting eye on in the second period, outscoring Centennial 15-10, to cut the lead to 31-16 at half-time. Centennial outscored Mountain Home 36-13 in the second half, for the 67-29 win.

"Our offensive output again was less than we had hoped for," said Coach Kohring of the Centennial game. "Where the night before we had out-rebounded Eagle, our rebounding came out about 10 less than Centennial (47-37), so not a very productive night for us.

"We were encouraged as far as breaking their press. They put a lot of full-court pressure on us, and we lost some early turnovers, and Centennial converted them to baskets to build up their early lead, but later on we relaxed a little bit and got the ball down the floor."

Paula Doerr was once again the scoring leader for Mountain Home, following up her nine-point effort Friday night against Eagle with 15 points. Erin Mullen netted six points, Kaleena Bluemer scored four, and Erica Stanton and Nicole Roelofs each scored two points.

Mountain Home hit nine of 35 field goals to shoot 26 percent for the game. Centennial hit on 26 of 75 for 36 percent.

The Lady Tigers were at Mountain View last night (Tuesday) to face the Lady Mavericks, and are home against Capital on Saturday night.

"More 5A schools, and these will tell us what we have to work for, so we'll give it our best shot," Kohring said.