Tiger nine goes 1-3 at Buck Bags Baseball Tournament

The Mountain Home Tigers let a few games get away from them before closing out the Bucks Bags Baseball Tournament with a win over Nampa, to go 1-3 in the tourney.

Mtn. View 15

Mtn. Home 8

The Mountain View Mavericks exploded for eight runs in the fourth inning to down the Mountain Home Tigers 15-8 in the Tigers' opening-round game of the Bucks's Bags Baseball Tournament at Rodeo Park in Nampa.

Mountain View only outhit the Tigers 10-9 but seven Mountain Home errors helped the Mavericks score six unearned runs.

"Mountain View's an extremely well-coached and disciplined program and we just didn't play our 'A' game," said Tiger baseball coach Travis De-Vore of the Mountain View loss.

"If you're going to take down a team like Mountain View, which, certainly we can compete with them, you need to be on your 'A' game. It's just one of those things we've got to learn from, and tighten up our defense and obviously take advantage of more opportunities with runners in scoring position, but it was a rough start."

Tom Hennessey and Ricky Baker both had two hits against Mountain View, Eric Christiansen had a double and two RBIs, David Bitrick and Chris Maholick both had hits and RBIs, and Ricky Lee and Trevor Woodruff had hits. Anthony Castillo had an RBI.

Gabe Anderson pitched into the fourth inning and suffered the loss, his second of the season. Anthony Castillo pitched the final 3.33 innings.

Hermiston 7

Mtn. Home 4

A five-run fourth inning did the Tigers in Thursday against Hermiston, Ore. as they lost to the Oregon school 7-4 at the Buck's Bag Tournament Thursday.

Mountain Home led 2-1 going into the bottom of the fourth when Hermiston jumped on Tiger starter Alex Rodriguez for five runs to take a 6-2 lead. The Tigers closed the gap to 6-4 in the fifth, but could come no closer, losing 7-4.

"It was definitely a step up from the first game of the tournament, with the guys starting to hit the ball a little bit better, better defense and Alex Rodriguez pitched well for us, but, again, we never took control of the tempo of the game. But we definitely played better than our first game of the tournament," said Coach DeVore.

Trevor Wodruff had three of the Tigers' seven hits. Ricky Lee had two hits, Jake Hennessey had a double and an RBI, Anthony Castillo had a hit and Tom Hennessey and Ricky Baker also had RBIs.

Alex Rodriguez suffered the loss, pitching four innings. Ricky Baker closed out the game, pitching the last two innings.

Twin Falls 7

Mtn. Home 2

Another bad inning did the Tigers in against Twin Falls Friday, as the Bruins scored six runs in the sixth inning -- five of them unearned -- as the 5A Bruins beat Mountain Home 7-2.

Mountain Home scored two runs in the third to go up 2-0, and Eric Christiansen had a 2-1 lead through five innings. Trevor Woodruff came on in relief in the sixth for the Tigers, and Twin Falls took advantage of Tiger errors to plate six runs to win the game 7-2.

"Eric Christiansen pitched an outstanding game, and the guys had some clutch plays -- Gabe Anderson had a diving catch in left field to preserve the lead, the guys really looked like we were playing strong, but Twin Falls is an outstanding team -- they ended up winning our pool in the tournament -- and we had them beat and outplayed them for six out of the six and a half innings we played, and that one inning did cost us big, but it certainly showed that we can play with anyone."

Chris Maholick had a double and an RBI, Trevor Woodruff had a triple, and Ricky Lee, Eric Christiansen, Ricky Baker and Logan Monasterio also had hits. Trevor Woodruff sufferd the loss, despite giving up just one earned run in the sixth inning.

Tigers 11

Nampa 4

The Tigers closed out the tourney with an 11-4 win over Nampa Saturday afternoon at Rodeo Park in Nampa.

The Tiger scored in every inning on their way to the 11-4 win.

All four of Nampa's runs came in the seventh inning.

"The strength of our performance this weekend was definitely pitching," said Coach DeVore. "Tom Hennessey threw a strong game for us and didn't even have his best stuff, but was able to locate down in the zone with his fastball when he needed to, and our hitters came out just absolutely performing, with Ricky Lee and Eric Christiansen leading the way, going four-for-four and three-for-three.

Ricky Lee had four hits including a double and a triple and had an RBI, Eric Christiansen had three hits including a double and drove in four runs, Brock Morris had two hits and two RBIs, Gabe Anderson, Anthony Castillo and Jake Hennessey also had hits, Castillo's was a triple, and Ricky Baker and Trevor Woodruff both had RBIs.

Tom Hennessey threw six scoreless innings to get the win. Devon Wilkenson pitched the seventh inning, giving up four runs, three of them earned.

The win improved the Tigers to 2-8 overall. They are 1-3 in conference play. They returned to conference action yesterday at Columbia and host the Wildcats this afternoon.

The Tigers are home for two non-conference games against Wood River Saturday afternoon, starting at 2 p.m.