Lady Tigers fall to Kuna, B.K. before beating Nampa

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers managed one win in three matches last week, losing to Kuna and Bishop Kelly before beating Nampa for the second time this season in girls varsity volleyball action.

Mountain Home 3, Nampa 2

The Lady Tigers battled back from a 2-1 deficit to win game four and force a fifth game, and won that to take a conference match Sept. 21 from Nampa, three games to two, in a tri-match at Kuna.

Mountain Home won the first game 25-18, dropped the second game,19-25, and lost a close third game 25-27.

They came back strong in game four to win 25-13 and took game five 15-12.

"We went back and forth with Nampa and ended up going five games with them," said Lady Tiger volleyball coach Rachele Asbury. "We had way too many missed serves. Missed serves are not going to win us the games and that's what helped the momentum for Nampa to come out and take two of the games from us.

"We were able to pull out a win in the fifth game, but still, we made it too close and gave them too many unearned points."

Dylan Dean was 17/20 serving, and had a block, seven kills and 26 assists. Krissy Elliott was 5/5 serving with one ace. Jessica Liercke was 1/2 serving and had a block and nine kills. Hailey Belt had two assists, one block and six kills. Brittany Ryan was 10/15 serving and had 14 digs. Stephanie Jewell was 17/19 on serves and had 11 digs. Dakota Dean was 23/25 serving, had two aces, four kills and 20 digs. Jacci Cristobal had an assist, a block, was 5/7 serving and had six kills and 10 digs. Emilee Schetzle was 11/14 serving, had two blocks, a kill and eight digs.

The Lady Tigers hit 83 percent (89/107) of their serves against Nampa.

Kuna 3, Mountain Home 0

Mountain Home played Kuna close, but fell to the Lady Kavemen in three straight games at Kuna Sept. 21.

The Lady Tigers dropped game one 15-25 and played Kuna close in the second, but fell short, 21-25. They lost the third game, 19-25.

"We played them close," said Coach Asbury of the Kuna match, "but missed serves hurt us, and when you're playing a better team, you can't have missed serves."

Dylan Dean was 2/5 serving, had two kills and 13 assists. Krissy Elliott was 3/4 serving. Jessica Liercke had a block and four kills. Hailey Belt had two kills. Brittany Ryan was 7/9 on serves, with an ace, a kill and seven digs. Stephanie Ryan was 9/10 serving, with an ace and six digs. Dakota Dean was 19/20 serving, had three aces and a kill. Jacci Cristobal had one block and four kills. Emilee Schetzle was 7/8 on serves.

Mountain Home hit on 84 percent (47/56) of their serves against Kuna.

Bishop Kelly 3, Mountain Home 0

The Lady Tigers were swept by Bishop Kelly Thursday night in conference volleyball action in Lloyd Schiller Gymnasium in Mountain Home.

Bishop Kelly dominated the net all night, especially in the first two games, as the Lady Tigers were unable to get into any kind of rhythm. Mountain Home fell in the first game 11-25 and the second 9-25.

Mountain Home shot out to an early lead and came out of the first three ties (9, 13, 18) with the lead,, but after Bishop Kelly tied it up at 19-19 the Lady Knights went on to a 25-20 win and won the match, three games to none.

"It definitely wasn't our night," said Coach Asbury after the match. "It wasn't that they were doing anything that we didn't know they were going to do. I told the girls before the game that they needed to be ready for them to block us, because they're a good blocking team, and that we need to be ready for coverage off of that. The first two games we got blocked a ton and we weren't there to cover them.

"Hands down to them for blocking us, but we just weren't making the adjustments that we needed to."

Dylan Dean was 5/6 serving, with an ace, four kills, a block and 11 assists. Krissy Elliott was 4/5 serving. Jessica Liercke had two blocks and a kill. Hailey Belt had a kill and a block. Brittany Ryan was 4/5 serving, with an ace and 10 digs. Stephanie Jewell was 12/13 serving. Dakota Dean was 8/9 serving, with an ace and two kills. Jacci Cristobal had five kills and Emilee Schetzle was 2/3 serving with one kill.

The Lady Tigers were 19 of 20 (95 percent) serving for the first two games, but ended the night hitting 85 percent (35/41) of their serves. Bishop Kelly was 97 percent (71/73) on its serving for the night.

The Lady Tigers take a 3-7 conference mark into this week, with no games scheduled this week. They return to action Oct. 5 at Skyview and Oct. 7 at home against Middleton.

"We have a bye week this week," said Coach Asbury. "There's a lot of things that we can work on. Some conditioning is going to be involved. We need to really pick up our effort level as far as coverage, being ready for tips, anticipating, and we need to have better serves."