Tigers open season with overtime win over Columbia

The Mountain Home Tigers opened SIC 4A conference boys basketball play with a 78-74 overtime win over the Columbia Wildcats last Thursday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium.

The Tigers trailed just once in the ball game, 2-1, a couple minutes into the game. From there, Mountain Home went on a 10-0 run to go up, 11-2. It was 15-7, Mountain Home after a quarter.

Mountain Home built their lead up to 13 points on three different occasions in the second quarter, the last time at 32-19, with 2:49 left in the half. Columbia scored the final six points of the half to cut the Tiger lead to 32-25 at the half.

Columbia whittled the lead down to three, 34-31, early in the third quarter, but the Tigers went back up by eight, with a final run by Columbia cutting it to four, 47-43, heading into the fourth quarter.

The Wildcats tied the game at 50 and 52, but a basket by Jake Posey and a trey by Chris Maholick put the Tigers ahead by five, 57-52, with 4:42 left. The Tigers led again by five, 61-56, with 2:09 left, but Columbia battled back to tie the game at 63-63, sending it into overtime.

Mountain Home went on a 9-0 in the overtime, to go up 72-63. It was a lead that the Wildcats were unable to overcome, as the Tigers won, 78-74.

"I'm happy to get the win, but it wasn't quite the way I dreamed it up," said Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot with a chuckle. "They made a good switch on us in the first half when they went to a zone. That's something in two years I haven't seen -- Columbia running zone. He (Columbia coach Reggie Guerrero)'s been a man-to-man guy all the way through and through. We've worked on our zone offense, but there's a difference in working on it and then being able to come out and execute it, and it was kind of trial-by-error a little bit tonight.

"I saw some good things. I saw some guys step up and show me some good things, and I saw some things that we need to work on and keep improving, and I know that about us -- we've got guys that we've got to find their weaknesses, and we're going to have to iron those out, and we're not going to get there tomorrow -- it's going to be somewhere later in the season, and hopefully we're in the ball park where I still think we can get wins along the way."

Five Tigers scored in double figures, led by Jake Posey with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Chris Maholick added 15, Jake Hiler came off the bench to score 12 points, and Kyle Kerfoot and Nick Barrie both netted 11. Travis Gordon and Alex Campbell finished the night with six apiece, and Chris Rau scored one point.

The Tigers travel to Nampa Friday night to face the Bulldogs in conference play.