Turnovers prove costly as Tigers fall to Vikings

Turnovers plagued Mountain Home Friday night as the Tigers closed out their 2013 football season with a 36-12 loss to the Vikings at Middleton.

The Tigers turned the ball over six times on the night, five by fumbles, the first coming on their opening series of the game.

Ryan Eckstrom got the Tigers off to a good start, running 46 yards on the first play of the opening drive to the Middleton 27.

Two plays later, a fumble on a quarterback sack turned the ball over to the Vikings at the Middleton 38.

The Vikings capitalized on the turnover, going 62 yards in 10 plays, Hayden Bennett passing 18 yards to Jake Skinner for the score. The two-point conversion run failed, but the Vikings led 6-0 with 7:04 to go in the first quarter.

The Tigers fumbled the pooch kick and Middleton recovered on the Mountain Home 31-yard line.

Three plays later, Mountain Home had the ball back on a pass interception, but went three-and-out and punted the ball back to the Vikings.

Middleton put together a 64-yard, 10-play drive, capped off by a 10-yard run by Jake Skinner. The pass for the two-point conversion failed, but the Vikings led, 12-0, with 0.9 seconds left in the first quarter.

Mountain Home answered with a scoring drive of their own, going 65 yards in nine plays, Jesse Cobos passing 12 yards to Jiame Martinez for the score. The PAT kick was low, but the Tigers had cut the Middleton lead to 12-6.

The score sparked the Tiger defense and they forced a three-and-out by Middleton.

The next Mountain Home drive ended three plays later with an interception, but two plays later the Vikings coughed up the football, and Mountain Home recovered.

Mountain Home punted the ball back to the Vikings, who put together an 85-yard, eight-play drive, Jake Skinner scoring from three yards out. Hayden Bennett passed to Kory Peterman for the two-point conversion to put Middleton up 20-6, with 51.3 seconds left in the half.

A 47-yard pass play from Jesse Cobos to Ryan Eckstrom put Mountain Home at the Viking three-yard line with 12 seconds left, but the Tigers fumbled the ball away on the next play and Middleton ran out the clock for a 20-6 halftime lead.

Middleton took the opening kickoff of the third quarter and went 72 yards in six plays, the big play a 47-yard pass play from Hayden Bennett to Travis White for the score. The two-point conversion try failed, and Middleton led 26-6 with 9:23 left in the third quarter.

Mountain Home answered with a scoring drive of its own, Jake Ryan capping off the drive by taking it in from the one. The two-point conversion try failed, but the Tigers narrowed the Viking lead to 26-12, with 6:43 left in the third quarter.

The Vikings again went to the air for a big scoring play, Hayden Bennett connecting with Keith Myers on a 61-yard scoring strike. The PAT kick was good and Middleton led 33-12 with 4:16 left in the quarter.

Mountain Home again fumbled the kickoff and the Vikings, though stopped by the Tiger defense from scoring another touchdown, did add three points on a Zack Searle 27-yard field goal to make it 36-12 with 47.5 seconds left in the third quarter.

Mountain Home then put together a good drive down to the Viking 19-yard line, before another fumble turned the ball back over to Middleton.

The Vikings then had a good drive down to the Mountain Home five-yard line that was killed by a fumble, which was recovered by the Tigers.

Mountain Home was able to pick up a couple first downs before their drive stalled and they turned the ball over on downs.

Middleton then ran out the clock for their 36-12 victory.

Despite the loss, Tiger head football coach Aaron Rodney saw some positives to take away from the game, although he agreed turning the ball over six times made it tough to get the offense going.

"Some of that is due to us having to put some different people in the backfield. A lot of that was timing and different things like that, so we weren't able to get those things going.

"A lot of young kids got some time tonight, but that's due to a lot of our predicament with injuries through the season.

"Overall, I thought the effort was good tonight, and the kids didn't quit, they played well, but the turnovers -- you can't turn the ball over like that, and when you do, you don't win many games.

" It's too bad we couldn't have played better for the seniors, and sent them out of here with a win, because it was there, and it was possible. Shooting ourselves in the foot has kind of been our MO all year, and that's got to get cleaned up -- that has absolutely got to get cleaned up -- and I'll find a way to clean it up."

The Tigers rushed for 132 yards, led by Ryan Eckstrom with 84.

Mountain Home had 169 yards through the air, as Jesse Cobos completed 10 of 21 passes. He had one touchdown pass and had a pass picked off.

Ryan Eckstrom had 66 yards in receptions on two catches. Nigel Whitfield caught four passes for 57 yards. Jiame Martinez had two receptions for 23 yards and a touchdown, Levi Abrahamson caught one pass for 13 yards and Jordan Pendleton had one catch for 10 yards.

Mountain Home finished the season 1-8 overall and 1-7 in conference.Coach Rodney, who is 1-17 in two years as head coach of the Tigers, believes next year will see the program turn the corner.

"We have to change the mentality of this program. It's a three- to five-year project to really get everybody going. I think the program is really moving forward and our younger levels are doing a great job.

"I think next year we're going to turn the corner, but one of the things for next year is we've got to really get in the weight room and doing off-season stuff so we can execute. We haven't executed very well at times this season, but that's lack of commitment that some of us had and that's some of the things that need to change.

"Early on in the season we played some tight ball games, and probably should have won some of those, but we shot ourselves in the foot. Second half of the season we really dealt with a lot of injuries and it was kind of a tale of two halves, but it is what it is, and I feel confident with what we have coming up, we'll really turn the corner next year.

"We've got a lot of good talent, a lot of kids that are committed. We talked with all the underclassmen last week and a lot of those guys are ready to go and they're bought in and they are ready to get going. We're got to get a lot of things cleaned up for next year, but we'll get it fixed."