Mountain Home drops 3 more conference baseball games

The woes continue for the Mountain Home Tigers as they dropped conference baseball games to Kuna and Caldwell.

Kuna 15, Mountain Home 6

A 10-run sixth inning was the big difference last Wednesday as the Kuna Kavemen topped the Mountain Home Tigers in conference baseball during a home game. The game was originally scheduled for April 14, but bad weather postponed it to the next day.

Mountain Home pushed across single runs in the first and second innings to take a 2-0 lead over the Kavemen. Kuna tied it with two in the third.

Both teams scored twice in the fourth to knot the score at 4, and the Kavemen scored a run in the fifth to go up by one.

Then came the disastrous sixth inning for the Tigers when errors helped Kuna score 10 unearned runs. Mountain Home got two of the runs back in the bottom of the inning, but no more, as the Kavemen left with the 6 win.

The Tigers actually outhit the Kavemen, 11-8, but only four of the 15 Kuna runs were earned. Teddy Reaume had three hits to lead the Tigers, scoring two runs and driving in one. Curran Price and Cody Blakemore both had two hits, Price had an RBI.

Bailey Miller-Hodge, Jesse Cobos, Tyler McCall and Kai Corbett also had hits with Miller-Hodge and Cobos adding RBIs. McCall also had a double for the Tigers.

Cody Blakemore pitched into the fifth inning and suffered the loss, giving up four earned runs while striking our four.

"We were in this game, but we just rolled over and didn't play our brand of baseball ," said Tigers' baseball coach Matt Bundy. "We made some mental mistakes and made some errors and we just let Kuna mentally win the game."

Caldwell 10, Mountain Home 0

(Five innings)

Caldwell's ace pitcher Jordan Britton limited Mountain Home to just one hit Thursday as the Cougars shut out the Tigers, 10-0, in five innings at Caldwell High School.

Tyler McCall had Mountain Homes lone hit against Britton, who struck out nine Tiger batters.

Zach Petersen suffered the loss for the Tigers. The senior right-hander gave up six runs, but just one earned, and had three hits in three innings of work. He struck out three batters.

Coach Bundy thought Jordan Britton pitched a great game against his Tigers.

"We hit the ball a couple times," the coach said. "Tyler (McCall) got a nice hit off him. We were pretty solid with those guys. It was a two-run game until about the third or fourth inning, and then we gave up a few runs."

Britton represents one of the state's elite pitchers, Bundy added.

"Their coach said he's looking at small college now, but I'm thinking they're going to be rethinking that. He's a D-1 type pitcher," he said.

Cougars 15, Mountain Home 3

(Five innings)

The visiting Cougars broke open a close game, scoring 14 runs in three innings to down the Tigers, 15-3, after five innings at Mountain Home on Friday.

Each team scored a run in the first before Caldwell pushed across five runs in the third. The Tigers got two of them back in the bottom half of the inning, but a four-run fourth and five-run fifth inning put the game away for the Cougars.

Mountain Home managed just five hits off Caldwell pitcher Austin Van Horne. Jesse Cobos had an RBI single in the first when Bailey Miller-Hodge doubled and scored. Curran Price, Cody Blakemore and David Welle also had hits.

Caldwell pounded out 14 hits, 10 of them off Tigers' starter and loser Jesse Cobos, who also walked seven and hit two batters, as he struggled to find the plate.

"You've got to hit your spots," Coach Bundy said. "Jesse has thrown well for us in a lot of games, and he throws it hard. And you've got to give Caldwell credit. They swung the bat well, and when he took it into the zone they hit it.

"There were a couple of wind-plays I'd like to redo," the coach added. "That ball really carried on us a couple of times."

The Tigers drop to 1-8 in conference and 3-12 overall. They have a busy week this week, traveling to Wood River for a non-conference game on Monday. On Tuesday, they return to conference play at Skyview, returning home to face the Bishop Kelly Knights on Thursday then traveling to Bishop Kelly on Friday.

"We're going to try to climb up into a little better seed for the district tournament," Coach Bundy said. "We've got some quality clubs to play yet. Bishop Kelly is going to be gunning for us after we beat them over there earlier."