Lady Tigers drop first two games

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers opened their basketball season last weekend with losses at home against Boise and Centennial.

Boise 80

Mountain Home 43

The Lady Braves from Boise broke away for a 23-8 lead at the end of the first quarter last Friday night at Mountain Home, but Mountain Home refused to quit, and scored 19 second quarter points to trail 48-27 at halftime.

Unfortunately for the Lady Tigers, they scored just 16 points in the whole second half as 5A power Boise rolled to an 80-43 win.

Still, Mountain Home coach Karen Kohring, whose Lady Tigers lost to Boise 78-23 last year, saw some good things come out of the game.

"It's made me feel good to have Coach Angelos call a timeout because we were right there, and he wasn't very comfortable with his five-to seven point lead, but his adjustments we didn't counter, and that's when they took off."

Michelle Reynolds and Christa Stanton hit for double figures against Boise, Reynolds had 16, Stanton, 10. Ali Hillman added six points, Des Walden and Kim Gulley both scored three, Shelby Wickmark and Mallory Rhead each had two, and Amanda Bitterman, one.

Centennial 68

Mountain Home 35

After Mountain Home's sophomores and junior varsity both came away with wins over Centennial Saturday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium, some fans were thinking sweep, and the first part of the first quarter certainly hinted at the possibility, but an old problem -- scoring lulls -- reared its head again, and the Lady Tigers were unable to come back.

The game was tied at 6-6, with 5:12 left in the opening quarter. It was almost two minutes later before the Lady Tigers would score again, on two free throws by Michelle Reynolds with 3:20 left, and that cut the Centennial lead to 15-8.

A basket by Katie Williams at the buzzer put Centennial up, 20-11, after a quarter.

Baskets by Amanda Bitterman and Des Walden cut the margin to 20-15 not even a minute into the second quarter, but over five and a half minutes would run off the clock before the Lady Tigers would score again, on a basket by Ali Hillman to cut the lead to 29-17 with 1:30 left in the half.

Mountain Home hung tough, and trailed 30-20 at halftime.

Ali Hillman scored to open the scoring in the second half, but Mountain Home would not score again for over two minutes, again, on a basket by Hillman, but Centennial led 41-24. It was 53-27, Centennial, heading into the final quarter.

Mallory Rhead scored to start the fourth quarter, as Mountain Home cut the lead to 53-29. That would be the closest the Lady Tigers would come the rest of the night, as Centennial won, 68-35.

Coach Kohring talked of the scoring lulls, in comments after the game.

"I felt defensively, we were good all night long. The lulls killed us. We just talked about it in the locker room, that if everybody took a lull of however many seconds, and their girls score many four or five points, then the score gets out of hand like that. So we talked about the intensity that we want on the floor that everybody's got to be playing hard. I'm really pleased with our defense, we've just got to step up the offense."

Ali Hillman was the lone Lady Tiger in double figures scoring against Centennial. The 5' 7" sophomore totaled 16 points and brought down 10 rebounds.

Michelle Reynolds scored seven points, Des Walden added five, Shelby Wickmark, Mallory Rhead and Christa Stanton each scored two points, and Kim Gulley had one.

The Lady Tigers have a busy week this week. They were at Meridian last (Tuesday) night, host Wood River tomorrow (Thursday) night, and travel to Nampa on Saturday night.