Tigers struggle during two losses

The Mountain Home Tigers continue to show improvement, but are still looking for a complete game effort, as they dropped boys basketball games to Jerome and Middleton last week.

Jerome 65, Mountain Home 46

A slow start proved too much for Mountain Home to overcome as they lost to the Jerome Tigers 65-46 last Tuesday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

Mountain Home fell behind 13-0 before Christian Riedel's trey put them on the scoreboard at the four-minute mark of the first quarter. It was 22-6, Jerome, after a quarter.

A 7-0 start by Mountain Home in the second quarter brought them to within nine, 22-13, but could come no closer, and the local team trailed 31-1 at the half.

After falling behind by 21 at 41-20 midway through the third quarter, Mountain Home went on a 10-0 run to come within 11, but trailed 46-30 after three quarters.

Mountain Home got back within 10 at 51-41 midway through the fourth quarter, but Jerome again was able to push the lead back up, converting 11 of 16 free throws to keep the local Tigers at bay.

"We battled hard in the end, but we didn't come out strong," said Mountain Home Tiger head basketball coach Brion Bethel. "We came out flat, so we've just got to figure out how to put a full game together."

Cristian Riedel set a new season high in scoring for Mountain Home, scoring 18 points. Michael Daniels equaled his season high of 11. Jeremy Hopper added six points, Tyler Senger had a new season-high of five, Devin Wright scored four and Doug Long had two points.

Middleton 51, Mountain Home 37

The Tigers ran into a hot-shooting Middleton team Saturday night at Middleton and the result was a 51-37 win for the Vikings.

Mountain Home led early, 4-3, but an 8-0 run by Middleton gave the Vikings the lead for good as they shot out to a 16-9 lead after a quarter and led 32-18 at the half. It was 40-24, Middleton, after three.

Jose Rodriguez scored nine of his team-high and season-high 12 points in the fourth quarter as the Tigers managed to cut the deficit to 11, at 44-33, with three minutes left in the game, but Mountain Home was unable to come any closer and the result was a 51-37 win for the Vikings.

"We have to learn to play a complete game," said Coach Bethel after the game. "We came out a little flat right from the get-go, and it has a lot to do with the shots that Middleton took -- a lot of them were high-percentage shots, and a lot of ours were not high-percentage, and even the ones that we did get that were high-percentage we weren't converting on.

"So it's one of those things where the kids need to start getting in the gym more and getting more court time and get more practice time and it'll come. We'll start hitting more shots."

Jose Rodriguez led the Tigers in scoring with 12 points. Christian Riedel added seven points, Michael Daniels and Doug Long both scored six and Jeremy Hopper, Tyler Senger and Tyler Elliott each scored two.

The loss drops the Tigers to 0-6 on the season and 0-3 in conference play. They have just one game this week, traveling to Kuna tonight (Wednesday) to take on the Kavemen in conference action. The Tigers travel to Jerome on Dec. 28.