Tigers edge Caldwell

The Mountain Home Tigers opened the new year with a split of their SIC 4A conference boys basketball games last week, getting past the Caldwell Cougars, but losing at Skyview.

Mountain Home 42

Caldwell 40

The Tigers showed the effects of their two-week holiday break as they fell behind early.

Mario Betancourt scored 15 of his game-high 24 points in the first quarter, as Caldwell built up an 18-6 lead after a quarter.

Mountain Home slowly battled back, cutting the Cougar's lead to 26-18 at halftime, and climbed within two before David McConnell's trey at the buzzer pushed the Caldwell lead to 33-28 heading into the fourth quarter.

The Tigers finally caught up with Caldwell when David Anderson scored to tie the game at 36-36, with 3:06 remaining.

Robert Moss scored to give the Tigers the lead, 38-36, with 2:16 left.

Mario Betancourt hit one of two free throws with 2:14 left -- his only point in the second half -- which cut the Mountain Home lead to 38-36.

Tyler Hicks hit one of two free throws with 1:16 left to push the lead to 39-37, and hit a basket with 25 seconds left to make it 41-37.

Adrian Soto drained a trey with five seconds left to bring th Cougars back within one, 41-40.

Robert Moss then hit one of two free throws with four seconds left to make it a 42-40 final.

Mountain Home Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot was happy to get the win.

"It was a good comeback. I wasn't really happy with the way we came out. We didn't do a whole lot in the first quarter, and that's kind of the way our practices have been. We had some real problems in practice. We don't practice hard, and that's very frustrating, and I think that showed in the first part of the ball game -- we weren't ready to play full-pace basketball.

"Once we got into it, I thought we did some good things after that, but we got a little down early. We've got to come out and be consistent and play four good quarters."

Jacob Monasterio led the Tigers in scoring with 10 points. David Anderson, Jarrod Roberson and Tyler Hicks each added seven points, Robert Moss scored five, Clark Manwearing, four, and Troy Williams netted two points.

Mountain Home shot 29 percent (4/14) on three-point shots, and just 28 percent (8/29) inside the arc. The Tigers shot 56 percent (14/25) from the foul line.

Caldwell shot 46 percent (6/13) of their threes, 38 percent (8/21) of their two-point shots, but just 43 percent (6/14) from the free-throw line.

Mountain Home won the rebound battle, 30-20, led by Eric Gardzina with nine.

Skyview Hawks 73

Mountain Home 34

Skyview beat Bishop Kelly, 64-52 last Tuesday night, and reportedly showed the affects of an emotional day when they buried a classmate who had died in a drowning accident, and had also found out that day that 6' 11" senior Tom Taylor was lost for the season with an ACL injury.

The Hawks left no doubt they were ready to play Friday night. A 25-0 run by Skyview during a six-minute scoring lull for Mountain Home put the game out of reach, as the Hawks ran out to a 29-3 first-quarter lead over the Tigers last Friday night at Skyview.

Skyview shot 61 percent from the field in the first half to shoot to a 48-16 halftime lead.

Mountain Home managed to cut the Skyview lead to 25 points at 55-30 with under two minutes left in the third quarter, but Matt Ballenger scored the final five points of the quarter to make it 60-30, heading into the fourth.

The Tigers managed just four points in the fourth quarter, as the Hawks remained perfect in conference play with a 73-34 win.

"The bottom line is Skyview's a very good ball club," said Coach Kerfoot after the game.

"We tried taking away (Mark) Ballenger and making the other kids beat us, and they came out and did that, so we go to a regular defense and then Ballenger shoots lights out from all over the gym.

"We've got a lot of things to improve on, but they are a very, very good ball club. There's a reason they won the state championship last year.

"I thought the second half we played much, much better, and probably midway through the second quarter we started doing some good things. We've just got to get where we're confident with ourselves and play like that the whole game."

David Anderson and Jarrod Roberson each netted eight points for the Tigers. Tyler Hicks and Eric Gardzina both added five points, Travis Eikeness scored four, and Robert Moss and Kenny Florer both scored two.

Mountain Home connected on just two of 13 (15 percent) three-ointers, while Skyview shot 33 percent (7/21). The Tigers shot 36 percent 912/33) inside the arc, while Skyview shot a torrid 56 percent (23/41). Mountain Home shot a dismal 44 percent (4/9) from the free-throw line, while the Hawks hit six of nine (67 percent) foul shots.

Matt Ballenger scored 16 of his game high 26 points in the first half, while teammate Louie Beech hit 14 of his 18 in the first half.

Skyview out rebounded Mountain Home, 36-27. Eric Gardzina led the Tigers with six rebounds.

The Skyview loss dropped the Tigers to 1-3 in conference play, and 4-5 overall.

Mountain Home hosted Kuna last (Tuesday) night, host Bishop Kelly tomorrow (Thursday) night, and travel to Emmett on Saturday night, all three games conference encounters.