Volleyball ends season

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers played two tough, close matches but came up short in both of them to get eliminated from the District III 4A Volleyball Tournament at Kuna last week.

Bishop Kelly 3

Mtn. Home 0

The Lady Tigers opened the District Tourney against Bishop Kelly, a team they played close but lost in three to the last time they played them. Mountain Home played them tough in the first and third games, but lost in three straight to the Lady Knights.

Mountain Home led early in the first game, which had seven ties, the last one at 11-11.

Bishop Kelly, despite making just 17 of 24 serves, managed to take the lead and held off the Lady Tigers for a 25-22 win.

Bishop Kelly went on a 14-2 run in the second game to put it out of reach, as they won 25-14.

Mountain Home fell behind early in the third game, but fought back to take a 10-9 lead before a 7-1 run by the Lady Knights put Bishop Kelly up, 16-11. The Lady Tigers battled back within one, 22-23, and 23-24, but ended losing, 23-25.

Lady Tiger volleyball coach Rachele Asbury agreed, it was a match they should have won.

"We should have. Just some mental errors, court awareness, putting the ball out on our hitting. We definitely played well, we just need to learn how to push ahead and finish the game strong.

"The second game they got in our heads a little bit and we didn't play as tough as we should have. But our serving was much better after that, we limited the amount of serving errors that we had."

Sarah Cantrell was 14/14 serving with eight service points, two aces, six kills and eight digs. Nickayla Skinner was 14/14 serving, with seven service points, two aces, 12 assists and three kills. Jennie Jewell was 10/10 serving, had five service points, two aces and three digs.

Kelsie Hopkins was 9/10 serving, with five service points, three aces and four kills. Jasmyn Jewett was 5/6 on serves, had four kills, two blocks and a dig. Blas Lord was 5/7 serving, had two service points, six kills and two digs, and Arlene Futch had eight digs.

Kuna 3

Mtn. Home 1

The loss to Bishop Kelly put the Lady Tigers in the consolation bracket against Kuna. Kuna had lost to Columbia 3-2, after taking the first two games.

Mountain Home had just one bad game as they lost in four to Kuna to be eliminated from the tournament.

Mountain Home led early and by as much as four points on a couple occasions in the first game, the last time at 10-6, but a 17-6 run by Kuna put them up, 23-16. The two teams traded points the rest of the way, Kuna winning the first game 25-18. Mountain Home came out strong in the second game and took the lead early and never trailed, as they won 25-21.

A slow start in game three put the Lady Tigers down 7-0. Mountain Home did score three straight points to come within four, 3-7, but that would be the closest they would get, as Kuna finished the game on a 18-6, run to win, 25-9.

Mountain Home shot out to a 5-0 lead in the fourth game, but Kuna battled back on a 7-0 run to take the lead, 7-5, and never gave it back, winning the fourth game, 25-19, and the match, three games to one.

Coach Asbury agreed, the first game was theirs for the taking, and had they won it and gone up 2-0, things might have been different.

"We had 10 missed serves tonight," said Coach Asbury. "and you can't have that many missed serves against a team like that. The girls played hard, but the other team came out on top."

Mountain Home connected on 61 of 72 serves on the night for 85 percent.

Kuna was 80/93 on serves for 86 percent.

Nickayla Skinner was 18/20 on serves, had 11 service points, five aces, two kills, 12 digs and 11 assists. Blas Lord was 13/14 serving, with six service points, three aces, seven kills and three assists. Kelsie Hopkins was 10/12 serving, had six service points, two aces, two kills and two digs. Jennie Jewell was 8/10 serving, had five service points, an ace and eight digs. Sarah Cantrell was 5/7 serving, with one service point, one ace, four kills and two assists.

Charde Huntington was 5/7 serving, had two service points, an ace and two kills. Jasmyn Jewett had five kills and Arlene Futch had 12 digs.

Looking back on the season, Coach Asbury said despite very few victories, there were some positives for her girls.

I just told the girls that with anything you do, you've got to pick out the positives and each girl can pick out something positive that they improved on."

Coach Asbury hopes to build upon this year and looks forward to next year.

"We just have things that we will need to continue to build on from year to year, and the people that played on this team were a core part of our team and we're going to miss everybody."