Tiger basketball team gets ready for district

The Mountain Home Tigers ended their regular season schedule with two wins last week -- nearly three -- as they lost another close one to Kuna to start the week off.

Kuna 52, Mountain Home 48

A third quarter shooting blitz by Kuna broke open a close game and allowed the Kavemen to withstand a fourth quarter Mountain Home rally to down the Tigers 52-48 last Wednesday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

The first quarter went back and forth with Kuna scoring in the final seven seconds to take a 9-8 lead into the second quarter.

The Tigers fell behind, 17-8, early in the second, but battled back to take a 21-20 lead before Kuna scored to take a 22-21 lead into the locker room at halftime.

A 25-13 edge for Kuna in the third quarter, when they hit 10 of 15 shots, put the Kavemen up 47-34 heading into the fourth quarter.

The Tigers rallied in the final quarter, and with Anthony Castillo's trey with 41 seconds left, cut the deficit to two, 50-48.

Kuna managed to hit two of four free throws over the final 20 seconds to make it a 52-48 final.

"They came out (in the third quarter) shooting the ball, and we were a little flat-footed defensively, and that was kind of it," said Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot after the game.

"I really liked the way we came back and fought in the fourth quarter, though. We were down quite a bit, we inched right back in it and were right there at the end."

Anthony Castillo led the Tigers in scoring with 14 points. J.T. Cristobal, Ricky Castillo and Aaron Hobbs each scored six points, Anthony Barboza and Tyler Wright both scored five, Tyler Casey added four and Brent Sexauer scored two.

The Tigers shot 41 percent (20/49) from the field, hitting four of 14 treys (29 percent), and hit four of eight (50 percent) from the free-throw line.

The Kavemen ended up shooting 34 percent (20/59) from the field and hit 36 percent (9/25) on three-pointers. They shot a dismal 27 percent (3/11) from the free-throw line.

Mountain Home narrowly won the rebound battle, 31-29, led by Tyler Wright and Anthony Castillo with eight each.

Mountain Home 48,

Wood River 35

The Tigers returned to the win column Friday night, celebrating Senior Night with a 48-35 win over the Wood River Wolverines.

The Tigers led from start to finish, shooting to a 15-10 first quarter lead and led 26-19 at the half. It was 33-21, Tigers, after three quarters.

Coach Kerfoot was happy to get the win.

"It was great to honor the seniors who got a lot of playing time, and some of them showed really well. That's kind of what I wanted there tonight, to give some guys that hadn't played a lot in the last couple of games. James Simon did real well, Justin Connolly did very well, and both of those guys I thought shined pretty good tonight."

Tyler Wright led the offensive punch with 15 points. Tyler Casey added eight, Anthony Barboza, James Simon and Ricky Castillo each scored six, J.T. Cristobal added three, and Anthony Castillo and Justin Connolly each scored two points.

The Tigers hit 41 percent (21/51) of their shots, despite hitting just two of 17 (12 percent) treys. They shot a dismal 33 percent (4/12) from the free-throw line.

Wood River shot just 28 percent (13/46) from the field, hitting four of 16 (25 percent) long balls, and converted five of eight (63 percent) from the foul line.

The Tigers controlled the boards, 33-24, with Tyler Wright and James Simon leading the way with ten and nine rebounds, respectively.

Mountain Home 48, Columbia 42

The Tigers closed out their regular season schedule at Columbia on Saturday night and won the highly physical confrontation 48-42.

Aside from two ties, Mountain Home led all the way, leading 8-4 after a quarter, 17-12 at halftime, and 34-28 heading into the fourth.

There were 37 fouls called by the officials in the game -- 24 on Columbia and 13 on Mountain Home -- but they seemed to let a lot of physical contact go.

"I've seen heavyweight boxing matches that weren't that physical," said Coach Kerfoot after the game. "Tyler Wright, he's got a big black eye and a cut over one eye. They let him (Columbia's Eric Cotton) hammer on him pretty good tonight. All I can say is we survived it. We went on the road and we survived.

"We struggled at the free-throw line and it came down to if we don't put them down at the end, we don't win the game, and we ended up coming through there and we did what we needed to do to get the win on the road."

Anthony Castillo and Tyler Casey led the Tigers in scoring with 14 and 11 points respectively. Tyler Wright added eight points, Ricky Castillo scored five, J.T. Cristobal four and Brent Sexauer and James Simon both scored three.

Mountain Home shot 38 percent (16/42) from the field, hit three of 13 long balls (23 percent), and made just 42 percent (13/31) from the free-throw line, including eight of 20 (40 percent) in the fourth quarter.

Columbia hit 34 percent (16/47) of their shots, including four of 12 (33 percent) treys, and 43 percent (6/14) from the foul line.

The Tigers finished the regular season 5-9 in conference and 8-12 overall. They earned the number five seed for the District III 4A boys basketball tourney, opening Tuesday night at fourth-seeded Middleton. Second-round action is Saturday at the higher seeds. The final two days of the the district tourney will be at Kuna on Feb. 22 and 24.