Lady Tigers close season with pair of losses

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers closed out their regular season softball schedule last week with home losses to Emmett and Vallivue.

Emmett 4

Mountain Home 1

The Emmett Lady Huskies pushed across two runs in the third and fifth innings, and a seventh inning rally fell short for Mountain Home as the Lady Tigers dropped a 4-1 conference loss to the Lady Huskies last Tuesday at Mountain Home.

Mountain Home scored their run in the seventh, when Sheena Nelsen was hit by a pitch and came home on Sammy Dodge's triple.

Emmett pitcher Jody Zillner, who struck out 11 batters, shut down the Lady Tigers the rest of the way.

"It was a good game," said Mountain Home softball coach Joy Memmelaar. "The defense played well. They (Emmett) hit the ball a little better than we did and were able to get some of their runners across the plate. We left some runners on that were opportunities missed, but all in all, it wasn't a bad game."

Mountain Home managed just four hits off Jodie Zillner. Besides Sammy Dodge's triple, Ali Hillman had a double, and Dani Sloderbeck and Breann Christiansen had hits.

Emmett got nine hits off Ali Hillman, who struck out six and walked three.

Vallivue 9

Mountain Home 5

Mountain Home scored three runs in the second inning to take a 3-1 lead, and led, 4-2, after three, but Vallivue scored four runs in the fourth and three in the seventh to spoil Mountain Home's Senior Night last Thursday in Mountain Home.

"It was not one of our better outings," said Coach Memmelaar after the game, though we did some really good things during the game, but we sort of counteracted them by some not so good things. We actually managed to steal 10 bases today, which we've been working on for quite some time, but we did have our not so good moments. Like I said, we did some really good things, and we hit well today, we just countered them with some not so good plays."

The Lady Tigers out-hit Vallivue, 7-5. Sammy Dodge had two hits and scored two runs. Ali Hillman had a solo home run, Breann Christiansen had a hit and RBI, and Carmen Santy, Brei Draper and Sheena Nelsen also had hits.

Ali Hillman gave up just five hits, and only three of the nine runs were earned, as Mountain Home committed five errors.

Hillman struck out eight, walked three and hit two batters, and dropped to 8-9 on the season.

The Lady Tigers finished their regular season schedule 10-12, and finished 5-9 in conference play, which gave them the sixth seed heading into the District III 4A Softball Tournament, which began Monday at Kuna. The Lady Tigers opened tourney play Monday against Vallivue.