Tiger nine splits series with Columbia, beats Jerome

The Mountain Home Tigers managed two wins in three baseball games played last week, winning one of two conference games with Columbia, and edging Jerome at home.

Tigers 10

Columbia 9

(10 innings)

For the second time in two games the Mountain Home Tigers handed a conference foe its first loss, as the Tigers won a wild one with Columbia Thursday night at home, 10-9, in 10 innings. Mountain Home beat Bishop Kelly last week to hand the Knights their first conference loss.

Each team scored two runs in the first inning, and it stayed tied at 2-2 until Mountain Home scored four runs in the third to go up, 6-2, after three.

Mountain Home committed two straight fielding errors to start the Columbia sixth inning, and when dust had cleared and the final out was recorded, the Wildcats had scored six times to take an 8-6 lead.

A two-out bases-loaded walk to Ricky Baker scored one run, and Eric Christiansen followed with an RBI-single to tie the game at 8-8 in the bottom of the seventh and send the game into extra innings.

After a scoreless eighth, each team scored a run in the ninth to make it 9-9.

Alex Hoffman led off the Tiger 10th with a single, but was forced out at second, Chris Rau reaching first on a fielder's choice. Jake Hiler reached on an error, and after Jordan Cisna popped up for the second out of the inning, Derek Thorton walked to load the bases. Ricky Baker then walked to bring in Chris Rau with the winning run, as the Tigers handed Columbia their first conference loss, 10-9.

"It's a big win," said Tiger baseball coach Travis DeVore after the game.

"Obviously that game could have gone either way. Their kids stepped up at times, our kids stepped up at times. Their kids panicked at times, our kids did as well. It was one of those emotional games where you know there's a lot on the line, Columbia going in undefeated in conference and we know it was a big game for us, but I'm really proud,

" I thought Chris (Rau) and Gabe (Anderson) and Jake (Hiler) all threw extremely well for us to get the win, and there was a lot of timely hitting with guys getting walks when we needed it -- Derek Thorton, two big walks late in the game, Ricky Baker, obviously, getting the game-winning RBI with a walk there -- a lot of clutch hits, too -- Ricky Lee came out and put the ball in play for us and had lot of hits for us tonight, Eric Christiansen had that game-tying hit in the bottom of the seventh -- and there were a lot of positives. I still walk away from it knowing we're going to get better, but at this point I'm satisfied with the win and knowing that we're going to continue to progress."

Ricky Lee had four hits and an RBI for the Tigers, Alex Hoffman had three hits, Cal Vivier and Jordan Cisna had two hits, Cisna an RBI, Jake Hiler and Ricky Baker both had triples, Hiler had two RBIs, Baker three, including the game-winner, and Chris Rau had a two-run single, and Eric Christiansen had a single and RBI.

Jake Hiler, the third of three Mountain Home pitchers, pitched the final three innings and got the win, evening his record at 3-3.

Columbia 15

Mtn. Home 0

The Tigers went to Columbia on Friday, and the Wildcats scored 10 runs in the first inning on their way to a 15-0 five inning win.

The game was much closer than the score indicated, because the Tigers left the bases loaded in thee different innings.

"It was a tough first inning there. It looked like Jordan (Cisna) might get out of the inning witha runner on third and two outs, and there were some infield singles that went through, but that's just baseball, you're going to see games like that from time to time," said Coach DeVore after the game. "You don't want to be on the losing end of them, but it's not that our pitchers threw terrible, it's just Columbia came to play and it wasn't even a matter of us backing up the defense or anything like that, but hats off to Columbia, they came and hit the ball well and everything they hit found a hole. The score's ugly, but at the same time, that's just what happens in this game sometimes. You can be on the winning end of that and you can be on the losing end, and tonight, Columbia had it going."

Mountain Home had just two hits off Columbia's Brock Jessup, who struck out nine, walked four and hit a batter. Chris Rau and John Murdorf had the two hits.

Mtn. Home 3

Jerome 2

Mountain Home hosted Jerome Saturday afternoon in a non-conference game at Mountain Home, and Zane Bundy's single in the bottom of the fourth inning scored what proved to be the winning run as the local Tigers edged the visiting Tigers, 3-2.

Coach DeVore was glad to see his Tigers bounce back with a win after the loss at Columbia the night before.

"After last night, it's certainly tough to come back and be fired up, and I think we played a little bit passive, especially it showed up at the plate, but Jake (Hiler) came with his good stuff and Zane Bundy came to play, so we got the runs we needed to get across and it happens that the winning run is on a strike three that gets thrown away, and that's kind of an odd way to go ahead in the game, but we'll take it, obviously.

"The guys played well, we just could have hit a little bit better and we could have put some more runs on the board to back Jake's pitching performance up, but we'll take the wins when we can get them, and Jerome's a team we see a lot at state, so you want to win those games when you get a chance to play them."

Zane Bundy had two hits and the game-winning RBI, Alex Hoffman had an RBI single, Ricky Lee and Jake Hiler also had hits, and Brock Morris had an RBI.

Jake Hiler went the distance for Mountain Home, scattering just three hits and giving up two unearned runs while striking out five. Hiler improved to 4-3 on the season.

Mountain Home improved to 8-8 overall, and they are 4-4 in conference play. The Tigers traveled to Vallivue Tuesday for a non-conference game against the Falcons, and they travel to Kuna on Thursday, and face the Kavemen at home on Friday in their conference series.

"I think from here on out we've got to be looking to sweep -- I'm not trying to call anything or anything like that -- but if we want to finish in the top two or three in the conference, we've got to take care of both sides of the doubleheader.

"We'll take it one game at a time, but we certainly have the guys to do it, and with the way our pitching staff's been going, if we just come out ready to play defense and are aggressive at the plate, we'll get there."

Thursday and Friday's games both have a 5 p.m. starting time.