Tigers' district dreams end with loss against Kuna

The Mountain Home Tigers' boys basketball season ended last Tuesday, Feb. 22, with a district tourney loss to Kuna at Kuna.

The game was a game of runs with Kuna coming out strong and taking a 14-4 lead into the second quarter.

The second quarter belonged to Mountain Home as they battled back to within two at halftime, 24-22.

The Kavemen shot out to a big lead again early in the third quarter, but the Tigers came storming back to within one after three, 37-36.

Mountain Home scored early in the fourth to take its first lead, 38-37, but Kuna scored to go back ahead, 39-38. The Tigers regained the lead at 40-39 but were outscored 14-5, the rest of the way as the Kavemen prevailed 53-45.

"There were lots of ebbs and flows and highs and lows," said Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot after the game. "I guess the biggest thing is we'd come out and go on a low and get down by ten, and then we'd come back. We showed some fight and I think that's kind of where we've been all year long, and that showed.

"Kuna's a good team that was second in the district and in the conference and you can't keep putting yourself down ten. We came back form ten-point deficits or bigger twice and we got right back in it, but we just couldn't sustain it."

Anthony Castillo and J.T. Cristobal both scored in double figures for Mountain Home. Castillo led the way with 13 and Cristobal added 10. Tyler Wright put in six points, Tyler Casey five, Brent Sexauer three, and Anthony Barboza, Ricky Castillo, Luke Filipovich and Justin Connolly each had two points.

The loss ended the season for the Tigers, who finished 9-14 overall. Despite losing some good seniors, Coach Kerfoot sees a bright future for Tiger basketball.

"We've got some kids coming back -- J.T. Cristobal, Brent Sexauer and Ricky Castillo, and Luke Filipovich came up (from the JV) for the district tournament and contributed for us. We've got a JV team that didn't have a very good record, but they played tough and hard and were in a lot of ball games. They lost a lot of games by four points or less. If they come up and work hard, maybe we can be able to win a few of those by four points or so next year."