Tiger boys sophomore team beats Timberline

The Mountain Home Tigers sophomore boys basketball team played two tough games last week, coming away with a split against their 5A opponents.

Mtn. Home 63

Timberline 56 (OT)

The Mountain Home Tiger sophomores overcame a third quarter three-point blitz by Timberline to down the Wolves, 63-56, Thursday night in their season opening basketball game at home.

An 8-0 scoring run by Mountain Home midway through the first quarter helped the Tigers take a 14-9 lead into the second quarter. They built their lead up to 20-9, early in the second period, and led, 26-20 at halftime.

Timberline put on a shooting display in the third quarter, scorching the nets for 30 points -- 21 of them coming on seven three-point shots -- and built up a 50-39 lead heading into the final quarter.

Mountain Home battled back in the fourth quarter, and took a 56-54 lead with 48 seconds left. Timberline scored to tie the game and send it into overtime.

In the overtime period Mountain Home shut out the Wolves while scoring seven points, all by Trevor Woodruff, as the Tigers won, 63-56.

"We had a really nice ball game and came out really strong," said Tiger sophomore coach Matt Bundy. "Timberline had a huge third quarter -- I've never seen a sophomore team score seven consecutive threes in one quarter, and we went down by 10, but we made a good run there in the fourth quarter and came back, went into overtime and got the win. Trevor Woodruff was our leading scorer and did a real nice job."

Trevor Woodruff led the Tigers with 16 points, Alex Kellogg added 11. David Bitrick netted nine points, Brock Morris had eight, Damian Soliz, seven, Christian Halbach-Patterson, six, Matt Bernyk, three, Tom Hennessey, two, and Jordan Warila, one.

Vallivue 48

Mtn. Home 43

The Tiger sophomores came up short Friday night at Vallivue as the Falcons outscored Mountain Home, 48-43, in non-conference boys basketball.

Mountain Home started slow, and trailed 10-0 before finally scoring. It was 10-4 Vallivue, after a quarter.

"We had a kind of interesting challenge tonight," said Coach Bundy. "Our starting point guard David Bitrick hurt himself last night, so he's having his elbow x-rayed just to see how extensive it is. We're hoping he'll be able to come back next week, so it took me a good quarter to figure out how to replace my point guard in there, and once we figured it out, we caught back up."

The Tigers battled back in the second quarter to tie the game at 17-17 at the half.

Mountain Home built up a 30-24 lead in the third quarter, but an 11-3 run by Vallivue gave the Falcons a 35-33 lead heading into the final quarter.

The Tigers managed to tie the game at 35-35 early in the fourth quarter, but fell behind and could come no closer than one the rest of the way, as Vallivue won 48-43.

Despite the loss, Coach Bundy is optimistic about his sophomore squad.

"I think we're going to have a successful season. We split against a couple really solid 5A squads. It'll be fun to see how we do against 4A competition and kids our level of enrollment, and I think we're going to be a pretty competitive squad all season."

Alex Kellogg led Mountain Home with 19 points, Trevor Woodruff added 13. Christian Halbach-Patterson had five points, Tom Hennessey, four, and Brock Morris, two.

The Tigers host Columbia at 4:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.