Lady Tigers open season with two weekend victories

A tenacious defense keyed wins as the Mountain Home Lady Tigers opened their 2009-2010 girls basketball season with wins over Mountain View and Timberline.

Mountain Home 35, Mountain View 33

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers opened their basketball season last Friday night at Mountain View and came home with a hard-fought 35-33 win.

Mountain Home started slow and trailed 12-6 after a quarter.

They battled tough in the second quarter and narrowed the deficit to 24-22 at the half.

Mountain Home managed to tie the game at 32-32 heading into the fourth quarter, and eked out a 35-33 win in the closing stanza.

"It wasn't the prettiest quarter, obviously, in terms of points," said Mountain Home Lady Tiger basketball coach Brent Keener concerning the fourth quarter. "Defensively, though, we did a great job there and were able to pull out the victory. Part of that was we spent the last two or three minutes holding the ball, spreading them out and stalling a little bit."

Blas Lord and Dakota Barrie both hit for 10 points to lead the Lady Tigers in the Mountain View win. Shelby Posey added nine points and led the team in rebounds with 11. Charde Huntington scored four points and Rachel Warila had two.

Mountain Home 36, Timberline 27

The Lady Tigers overcame a scoreless second quarter with a tremendous 18-point fourth quarter to down Timberline 36-27 Saturday night at Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

Mountain Home trailed 12-7 after a quarter but then failed to score in the second period. They trailed 18-7 at halftime.

Dakota Barrie sparked the second half comeback, hitting three treys in the third quarter as the Lady Tigers cut the deficit to 25-18 after three.

The fourth quarter saw Mountain Home take control of the game, outscoring the Lady Wolves 18-2 to win it 36-27.

"I was extremely pleased with our second half play," said Coach Keener of the Timberline game.

"I was really disappointed at halftime, the way we started -- that second quarter was pretty sad -- but that third quarter, Dakota really got us started on both ends. Defensively, she had some key blocks and lots of rebounds, and she hit three threes in that third, and then everyone kind of fed off her in that fourth quarter.

"Blas hit some big threes, Jessica Liercke hit some big shots. It was kind of a glimpse of what we can do if we can put it together for all four," he added.

Blas Lord led the Lady Tigers in scoring with 13 points.

Dakota Barrie added nine, and had 10 rebounds and four assists to lead in those categories.

Jessica Liercke scored six points, Rachel Warila had four and Charde Huntington and Shelby Posey both scored two.

Mountain Home took a 2-0 record into last night's home game against Jerome. The Lady Tigers open SIC 4A conference play Nov. 24 at home against Middleton.