Lady Tigers crush Kuna, fall short to Bishop Kelly

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers played well against Kuna in their district tourney opener, but had their problems against Bishop Kelly in the semi-finals.

Mountain Home 62, Kuna 28

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers opened the District III 4A Girls Basketball Tournament with a 62-28 win over Kuna last Wednesday night in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

The Lady Tigers led from start to finish, jumping out to a 17-7 first quarter lead, and led 27-15 at the half.

Mountain Home put the game away in the third quarter, forcing 11 turnovers while it outscored the Lady Kavemen 24-5 to increase the lead to 51-20. Nine of 10 Lady Tigers scored on the way to the 62-28 win.

"I definitely liked the response in the third quarter," said Lady Tiger head basketball coach Brent Keener after the game. "We had our opportunities really early. We had extremely good looks, inside and out, but we didn't finish -- nerves a little, I think, the first three minutes, but we just let them stick around, too. I don't think we had much fire defensively, but we had it in the third quarter."

Blas Lord led the Lady Tiger scoring attack with 15 points. Dakota Barrie had a double-double with 14 points and 11 steals. Shelby Posey scored 12 points, Charde Huntington added eight points and led in rebounds with 11, Rachel Warila had six points and nine boards, Arlene Futch, Amanda Osborn and Angie Rios each scored two, and Cheyenne Castillo had one point.

Defensively, the Lady Tigers forced 31 turnovers.

Bishop Kelly 39, Mountain Home 35

The Lady Tigers hoped the third time was the charm Saturday night when they took on Bishop Kelly in the semi-finals of the district tourney. But once again, they came up short in a 39-35 nail biter.

Mountain Home came out flat, and only managed five shots in the first quarter, mainly because of ten first-quarter turnovers. Yet, the Lady Tigers trailed just 6-4 after a quarter. The Lady Tigers tied the game at 6, 8 and 10 but fell behind 21-14 at the half.

Nine more turnovers in the third quarter -- they had 27 for the game -- thwarted their offensive effort more, but they still trailed only 29-20 heading into the fourth quarter. Midway through the final quarter, the Lady Tigers finally showed some semblance of the team that has won 15 games this season (which includes handing top-ranked Jerome their only loss of season to date).

Mountain Home battled back with a basket and a free throw by Dakota Barrie to tie the game at 35 with 55 seconds left. The Lady Tigers never led in the game, despite several opportunities. Julie Maguira scored with 40 seconds left to put Bishop Kelly back on top 37-35. The Lady Tigers failed to score and forced to foul. Julie Maguira hit two free throws to make it a 39-35 final.

Coach Keener was beside himself searching for the answers his Lady Tigers lack against Bishop Kelly.

"I don't know what we do in terms of changing the nervousness," he said. "I don't know how we overcome that, as a coach, I can't go out there for them. We've got to get rid of that nervous energy and just act like it's another game -- that's all it is. For the longest time, and I don't understand it, because a lot of it's three-year varsity players -- seniors -- and they were just scared. It makes no sense to me. Finally, that last four minutes we started sharing the basketball, we started attacking the rim and we hit some shots."

Just three Mountain Home Lady Tigers scored, led by Dakota Barrie with 19 points. Shelby Posey netted 12 points and Charde Huntington added four.

A win would have put Mountain Home in the district championship game Thursday night and secured them a berth in next week's Real Dairy Shootout at the 4A State Tournament at Mountain View High School.

The loss puts the Lady Tigers in the consolation bracket where they faced Emmett Tuesday to try and make it to Thursday night's third-place game. The third-place winner will play the District VI runner-up Saturday afternoon at Burley High School in a play-in game for a final berth at state.

Despite the loss, Coach Keener is optimistic his Lady Tigers can make it back to state.

"I hope we understand that it's not over. We obviously don't get a week to prepare for the (district) championship game, but if we play our game, there's really no one besides Middleton or BK in this conference that can play with us, so hopefully we can get our minds right and get prepared for whoever."