Ninth grade falls to Kuna

The undermanned ninth-grade boys basketball squad traveled to Kuna this past Wednesday to take on the Kavemen.

Kuna, using a pressing defense and fast-break offense, rolled to a 46-36 victory. The young Tigers playing without four starters, were confused in the first quarter and had a lot of trouble breaking Kuna's press, as Kuna jumped to a 23-0 lead after the first quarter.

After that however, the young Tigers out-scored the Kavemen in every quarter but just couldn't quite get back into the game.

"I told the boy's at half-time that they had to believe that they could play basketball," said Coach Brian English. "No matter what they've been taught, no matter how many times we've done it in practice, if they don't believe they can play then they can't.

"We are a growing team and all we can play with is who is there. We can't make excuses and worry about what might have been. We just have to play basketball."

Leading the Tigers in scoring was Tyler Knauth with 11 points. Chaise Hopkins had nine points, Jared Day had six points, Blaine Jewett had five points, Tony McKenzie had three points and Luke Filipovich, seeing his first action of the year, had two points.

McKenzie also led the team with 18 rebounds.

Although he didn't score Aaron Menhart gave the team quality minutes coming off the bench, English said.

The Tigers travel to Glenns Ferry over the holidays to play two games on Dec. 22 and 30.