Lady Tigers score victories over Columbia and Kuna

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers picked up conference wins over Kuna and Columbia last week in girls basketball.

Mtn. Home 52

Kuna 18

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers led from start to finish in picking up a 52-18 win over Kuna last Tuesday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

The Lady Tigers forced 13 turnovers in the first quarter as they led Kuna 7-2 after a quarter. Their defensive pressure helped them build up a 23-8 halftime lead, and they led 37-12 after three quarters.

"Defensively, I thought we played extremely well," said Mountain Home Lady Tiger coach Brent Keener. "Early on, we missed a ton of lay-ins, but I thought in the second half we started making those lay-ins and put them away."

Shelby Posey led a balanced Mountain Home scoring attack with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Rebecca Wroten, Francesca Hale, Brandie Riggs and Chantell Crane each scored eight points, Shalamar Enriquez and Emily Moranda both scored four points.

Lady Tigers 34

Columbia 15

Mountain Home held off a feisty Columbia team Friday night at Columbia, downing the Lady Wildcats, 34-15.

Mountain Home jumped out to a 7-0 lead, and led, 9-5, after a quarter. They shut out Columbia in the second quarter, as they led 15-5 at the half.

Columbia came out in the third quarter and caused defensive problems for the Lady Tigers, and cut the Mountain Home lead down to five, 15-10, with 6:45 left in the period. The Lady Tigers held Columbia to just two free throws the rest of the quarter, and pushed their lead back to ten, 22-12, heading into the final quarter.

Baskets by Francesca Hale and Chantell Crane to start the fourth quarter pushed the lead to 26-12. Columbia got a basket a a free throw after that, but did not score in the final 5:46 as the Lady Tigers stretched it out to a 34-15 final score.

"It got a little ugly at times, but we were able to hang in there and pull out a win," said Coach Keener after the game. "The girls worked hard and did the job."

Francesca Hale led the balanced Mountain Home scoring with seven points. Emily Moranda, Shelby Posey and Chantell Crane each added six, Angie Rios, who went out of the Vallivue game with an injury, returned to action and contributed four points, Brandie Riggs and Shalamar Enriquez scored two points each, and Hannah Zamora had one point.

The Lady Tigers improved to 5-4 overall, and 3-1 in conference play. They host Skyview this Thursday night in a key conference matchup. The game will kick off following the 6 p.m. JV game.

"We'll definitely have to play better than what we did tonight (at Columbia)," said Coach Keener. "The good thing is we have them at home, and I think we play better at home. We'll be ready."