Lady Tigers extend winning season over Kuna, Columbia

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers stretched their winning streak to three games last week with victories over Kuna and Columbia.

Mountain Home 53, Kuna 26

The Lady Tigers celebrated Senior Night with a 53-26 conference win over Kuna last Tuesday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Mountain Home led all the way, shooting to an 18-5 first quarter lead, and leading 25-9 at halftime and 34-14 after three.

Mountain Home Lady Tiger coach Brent Keener was pleased with the effort against Kuna.

"We started out with a really good first quarter, got a little tired and a little sloppy in the second, but overall, drastic improvement from the first time we played Kuna," the coach said.

Keesha Janis-Gibson and Rachel Warila both set new season highs in scoring. Janis-Gibson scored 18 and Warila added 13. Jessica Liercke and Dakota Barrie both scored nine points, Emilee Schetzle had three and Hailey Belt one.

Mountain Home shot 39 percent (22/57) from the field, including four of 12 long balls. They connected on just 50 percent (5/10) from the free-throw line.

Kuna shot just 22 percent (8/36) from the field, hitting two of seven three-point shots. They made 57 percent (8/14) from the foul line.

Mountain Home won the battle of the boards 32-25 with Keesha Janis-Gibson bring down 10 rebounds.

Mountain Home 50, Columbia 27

The Lady Tigers got a first-half scare from Columbia Thursday night at Columbia as the Lady Wildcats led after a quarter and trailed by just one at halftime.

But Mountain Home took control of the game in the second half, outscoring the Lady Wildcats 30-8 to close out the regular season schedule with a 50-27 win.

Mountain Home jumped out to a 4-0 lead but the pesky Lady Wildcats clawed their way to an 8-6 lead after a quarter. The lead went back and forth in the second quarter, with Rachel Warila scoring in the final five seconds to give Mountain Home the lead, 20-19, at the half.

Rachel Warila hit a basket to start the third quarter to make it 22-19. Columbia scored to cut it back to one, 22-12, but Mountain Home then went on a 13-0 run before the Lady Wildcats hit three free throws to close out the quarter with Mountain Home up 35-24.

The Lady Tigers outscored Columbia 15-3 in the final quarter to win 50-27.

Playing a team they had beaten 48-19 earlier in the season at home, Coach Keener thought his girls might not have been that focused at the start.

"Columbia played hard. They really got after it and we weren't ready for the challenge. We thought we could throw the ball out and have another day, but (Coach) Driggs (Jessup) has them fired up. We missed some easy shots -- shots with contact ­-- I thought they were boxing out a little early with no calls -- but those are shots we have to finish, and a lot of them were inside the key.

"We did play better in the second half and started to force some turnovers on defense and started finishing some shots."

Jessica Liercke and Rachel Warila led the Lady Tigers in scoring with 16 and 11 points, respectively. The 16 points was a new season high for Liercke. Keesha Janis-Gibson added nine points, Dakota Barrie eight, Hailey Belt three, Emilee Schetzle two and Kelsey Egusquiza one.

The Lady Tigers shot just 26 percent (15/57) from the field, making just one of seven (14 percent) three-point attempts. They went to the free-throw line 36 times -- but just connected on 19 of them for 53 percent.

Columbia shot 24 percent (8/34) from the field, including two of 11 (18 percent) of their treys. They hit 60 percent (9/15) of their free throws.

Mountain Home dominated the boards 42-21, led by Dakota Barrie with 12.

The win improved the Lady Tigers to 10-8 on the season. They finished their conference schedule 9-5. That gives them the number-four seed going into the District III 4A Girls Basketball Tournament, which opens tonight. The Lady Tigers host fifth seeded Skyview.

"Skyview's going to be tough," said Coach Keener of the Lady Hawks. "They're not a team we can overlook. We can't start thinking about Middleton in the second round, we've got to worry about Skyview first. Skyview is scary. They've got three studs, and last time we did a great job on them and came out on top, so we've got to do the same thing."