Lady Tigers hosting district action

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers closed out their regular season girls basketball schedule with a road split, winning at Emmett but losing at Vallivue.

Mountain Home 47

Emmett 46

Marquina Gilliam sank three free throws with 12 seconds left that gave the Lady Tigers the lead, and they held off the host Lady Huskies for the win Tuesday night at Emmett.

Mountain Home trailed 14-12 after a quarter and were down 30-22 at the half. It was 41-34, Emmett, heading into the final quarter when the Lady Tigers made their surge.

"Emmett was playing well and shooting the ball well, and really played a very good game," said Mountain Home Lady Tiger coach Brian English.

"I was really proud of our girls the way they hung around and we were there at the end. They never got up on us by double figures, we kept it five, six or seven points the whole time. We just couldn't seem to catch them, but then at the end we tightened up the 'D' and good things happened."

Ali Hillman led the Lady Tigers with 15 points and brought down a career high 20 rebounds.

Marquina Gilliam added nine, Lisa Kellerman scored eight points, Jessica Egusquiza, seven, Kaleena Bluemer, four, Teysena Chatman and Sammy Dodge both scored two.

Mountain Home shot 32 percent (17/53) from the field, including two of nine threes (22 percent), and shot 58 percent (11/19) from the free-throw line. Emmett hit 37 percent (19/51) of their shots form the field, but only one of 10 treys and only 41 percent (7/17) from the foul line.

The Lady Tigers won the battle of the boards 45-33.

Vallivue 68

Mountain Home 32

Vallivue honored their five seniors for Senior Night last Thursday night at Vallivue. In doing so, Vallivue coach Stu Sells let his five seniors play the entire first quarter.

Had he stayed with them, the Mountain Home Lady Tigers might have had a chance, as they trailed just 10-5 after a quarter.

With a freshman, sophomore and junior replacing three of the seniors in the second period, the Lady Falcons exploded for 28 points to roll to a 38-13 halftime lead on their way to a 68-32 win that helped cap off a 20-0 regular season.

"What can you say, they're a good ball club," said coach English in radio comments after the game.

"I knew coming in that we had to play a perfect game to stay with them, and we didn't play a perfect game and it showed. We just didn't seem to have any energy tonight. We didn't seem to play like we played at Emmett the other night, we just didn't seem to have it tonight, so hats off to Vallivue, they did a good job."

Marquina Gilliam led the Lady Tigers with eight points. Jessica Egusquiza added seven. Ali Hillman scored five points, Lisa Kellerman and Kaleena Bluemer both scored four, and Ashley Kipp and Teysena Chatman each scored two.

Mountain Home shot just 29 percent (13/45) from the field, and 33 percent (3/9) on three-point shots. They hit just 30 percent (3/10) from the foul line.

Vallivue finished the night shooting 46 percent (26/57) from the field, 38 percent (6/16) on treys, and 56 percent (10/18) from the free-throw line.

Mountain Home was out rebounded by the taller Vallivue squad 40-29. Marquina Gilliam led Mountain Home with eight boards.

Mountain Home finished the regular season 10-10 overall, and 9-5 in conference, earning the third seed going into the District III 4A Tournament, which starts tonight.

The Lady Tigers will host Caldwell tonight in the first round. Caldwell is seeded sixth, and Mountain Home swept them during the regular season, beating them 38-20 at Mountain Home and 40-27 at Caldwell.

"We approach the playoffs one game at a time and see what we can do," said Coach English.

"Play some defense and see where it takes us, and as long as we can play defense, we can go somewhere. If we can't play 'D', we'll go two and go home."

Tonight's game tips off at 7 p.m. at Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Other first-round action tonight has number one seed Vallivue hosting eight-seeded Nampa, number two seed Skyview hosting seventh seed Kuna, and four seed Bishop Kelly hosting number five seed Emmett. Second round action continues Saturday night at the highest seeds, and the tourney moves to Skyview next week for the final two nights.