Winless Lady Tigers look to "new" season

With the start of the District III 4A Girls Basketball Tournament comes what has over the years been called the "brand new season," where one throws out the regular season records and starts over anew.

Mountain Home Lady Tiger basketball coach Karen Kohring is certainly hoping for a new season as her Lady Tigers dropped games to Nampa and Vallivue last week to finish the regular season winless in 20 games.

Nampa 34

Mountain Home 29

These two teams played to a 25-20 ballgame earlier in the month at Nampa, won by the Lady Bulldogs. Mountain Home was hoping to turn the tables when the Lady Bulldogs came to Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium last Tuesday night.

It was Senior Night for Mountain Home, with just two seniors to honor.

Things began fairly well for the Lady Tigers who, went up 9-6 after a quarter. The Lady Tigers went into the locker room at halftime still up, 18-17.

Nampa outscored Mountain Home 13-7 in the third period to take a 30-25 lead into the final quarter. The Lady Tigers held Nampa to just four points in the fourth, but scored only four themselves, as they fell short, 34-29.

"We played really well the first half and had some good transition baskets and played well," said Lady Tiger Coach Karen Kohring. "But we did not continue with the offense in the second half, ad they were able to take the lead, and we just couldn't come back."

Erica Stanton continued her consistent play, scoring in double figures for the fifth consecutive game, hitting 11 points. Nicole Roelofs added five points. Senior Michelle Reynolds played her final game in front of the home crowd, scoring four points, along with Erin Mullen. Katie Roelofs added three points, and Jessica Egusquiza ended the night with two points.

Mountain Home shot just 19 percent (8/43) from the field, and were just 15 percent (2/15) on three-pointers. They shot 58 percent (11/19) from the free-throw line.

Nampa shot 33 percent (11/33) from the field and missed their only three-point attempt. They shot just 38 percent (8/21) from the foul line.

Vallivue 51

Mountain Home 21

The Lady Tigers started strong in their regular season final at Vallivue last Thursday, and trailed just 16-13 after a quarter.

Unfortunately, they scored just eight points the rest of the game, while Vallivue scored 35.

"Senior Night and Vallivue was pretty pumped," said Coach Kohring of the Vallivue game.

"The first quarter was really good, 13-16, we felt really good. We dropped our full court press off to concentrate on our half-court defense, but it didn't really help us and they got some easy baskets off transition, some back breakers."

Nicole Roelofs led the Lady Tigers with seven points. Erica Stanton added six, Jessica Egusquiza, Bethany Law and Dani Dean each scored two, and Kaleena Bluemer and Michelle Reynolds both had one point.

Mountain Home shot a chilly 17 percent (6/36) from the field, and made two of 10 (20 percent) three-point attempts, and shot 54 percent (7/13) from the free-throw line.

Vallivue hit 39 percent (23/59) from the field, made one of four (25 percent) treys, and hit four of seven (57 percent) from the foul line.

The Lady Tigers finished the regular season 0-20, and went 0-14 in SIC 4A conference play.

They opened District III 4A Girls Basketball Tournament play last (Tuesday) night at Nampa against top-seeded Emmett.

Coach Kohring hopes they can put it all together at district and surprise some people.

"If we could take the one or two good quarters we have had every game and put them together for four good quarters, there would not be one team in our league we couldn't compete with, but the key is we have to play for four quarters."

The other first-round game at Nampa High last night saw Kuna and Vallivue facing each other.

Action at Caldwell last night had third-seeded Bishop Kelly taking on number six seed Caldwell, and number two seed Skyview facing seventh-seeded Nampa. Action continues at both sites tomorrow (Thursday) night, with losers playing losers at 6 p.m. and winners playing winners at 8 p.m.

Action continues next week at Nampa High with consolation games on Feb. 8 and the third-place and championship games on Feb. 10.