Tigers open season with solid win over Braves

The Mountain Home Tigers opened their football season with a 26-13 win over the Boise Braves Friday night at Bronco Stadium in Boise.      

The Tigers had been waiting for the season to get under way to make amends for last year's disappointing 1-8 showing, and wasted little time in taking control against Boise. 

After stopping the Braves and forcing a punt, Mountain Home moved the ball 47 yards in just three plays, the touchdown coming on a 30-yard run by Nick Barrie. 

The PAT was off, but the Tigers led, 6-0, with 9:01 left in the first quarter.      

Boise managed a first down on its next series before Chris Knudson scooped up a deflected pitch by Boise and rambled 43 yards for a score.  The two-point conversion failed, but it was 12-0, Mountain Home, with 6:57 left in the first quarter.      

Mountain Home would score one more time in the first half, going 47 yards in 11 plays, Tiger quarterback Jake Posey taking it in from a yard out.  That made it 18-0, Tigers, with 10:51 left in the half.      

Boise had their most successful drive of the first half after that, moving the ball from their own 23 down to the Tiger 24 before Mountain Home held on downs and took over on their  own 26. 

The first half ended with Mountain Home up, 18-0.      

The Tigers put up over 130 total yards in the third quarter, but failed to get on the scoreboard.      

Boise, helped out by Tiger penalties, moved the ball down and scored on a 30-yard bootleg by Braves quarterback Mike Oldham to open the fourth quarter, as the Tigers' lead was cut to 18-7, with 11:52 left in the ballgame.      

The Tigers answered with a 73-yard 10-play drive, Chris Knudson taking it in from nine yards out.  Robert Daniels ran in the two-point conversion to make it 26-7, Tigers, with 7:36 left.      

Back came the Braves, going 77 yards in nine plays, Mike Oldham connecting with Ricky Hughes on a 29-yard pass play for a score to cut it to 26-13, with 5:02 left.      

Mountain Home then kept possession of the ball the rest of the ballgame, the clock running out with the Tigers on the Boise two- yard line.      

"It's nice to get a win, but we had way too many mistakes," said Tiger head coach Brian Floyd. 

"If we're going to be competitive in the conference, we can't make those mistakes.  We had too many penalties.  They weren't huge errors, just small things, and things that can be fixed with some minor adjustments. 

"That first half, until the last two minutes, I thought we played very good ball.  Except for the fumble and the holding call on Bob Daniels' punt return, I thought we played almost flawless.  I think first half our defense played excellent.  There were a few plays where we were tackling too high, but they were small things, again, things that can be fixed."      

Bob Daniels led a Mountain Home offense that rushed for 321 yards by rushing for 113 yards on 20 carries.  Tyson Sessions had 75 yards on nine rushes, Zacq Hale rushed 10 times for 58 yards, Chris Knudson had nine rushes for 35 yards and a touchdown, and Nick Barrie rushed three times for 34 yards and a score.      

The Tigers also managed 113 yards through the air, as Jake Posey completed seven of 12 passes for 79 yards, and Robert Daniels completed two for 34 yards.  Brandon Doble caught three passes for 44 yards, Zacq Hale caught two for 44, Nick Barrie had two catches for 17 yards, Robert Moss caught one for 10 yards, and Robert Daniels had one catch for minus two yards.       

Boise had 131 yards rushing on 25 rushes, and Boise's Mike Oldham completed 11 of 20 passes for 93 yards and a touchdown.      

Defensively, Tyson Sessions had 15 tackles and a forced fumble. Zacq Hale had seven tackles, two deflected passes and a forced fumble.  Nick Barrie had seven tackles, Chris Kundson had six, two for sacks of 10 yards, and recovered a fumble returning it for a touchdown.  Kyle Clark and Bob Daniels both had four tackles.      

"After the game, the kids were excited we won," said Coach Floyd, but it was very subdued in the locker room, because the kids knew they could play a lot better, which is something good to see."      

The Tigers play their home opener Friday night at Tiger Field against the Vallivue Falcons.  The Falcons have moved up to the 5A level this year, so the game is a non-conference contest. "They're a good team, and they have a guy who's very fast and they like to get him to the outside, and we've really got to work on that in practice," said Coach Floyd.      

Kick-off is set for 7 p.m. Friday night at Tiger Field.      

The Mountain Home Tigers junior varsity football team also opened  with a 53-6 win over the Boise JV at Tiger Field, rolling up over 500 yards in total offense.