Mountain Home stumbles in hoop season debut

The Mountain Home Tigers opened their boys basketball season last week with losses to 5A schools Rocky Mountain and Mountain View.

Rocky Mountain 53

Mountain Home 42

The Mountain Home Tigers shot out to an early lead on Rocky Mountain last Tuesday night at Mountain Home, but couldn't hang on to it and lost a 53-42 non-conference contest to the Grizzlies.

A basket and a free throw by Brent Sexauer gave the Tigers an early 3-0 lead, but Rocky Mountain then went on a 7-0 run before the Tigers regained the lead, 8-7.

The Grizzlies led 14-11 after a quarter.

A 7-0 run by Rocky Mountain to start the second quarter pushed its lead to 21-11.

The Tigers got baskets by Michael Daniels, Doug Long and Luke Filipovich to cut the deficit to 21-17, but Rocky Mountain finished the quarter on an 8-0 run to take a 29-17 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Rocky Mountain enjoyed its biggest lead in the third quarter when the Grizzlies went up 44-25. They led 46-29 heading into the fourth quarter.

Mountain Home went on a 9-0 run to start the fourth quarter and battled back within eight, 46-38, but Bryce Feist, who had six treys on the night, drained one to push the lead to 49-38 and the Tigers never got closer than nine the rest of the way, losing 53-42.

For the first game of the season, Mountain Home Tiger basketball coach Tony Kerfoot saw some good things from his Tigers.

"We had a real rough dry spot in the first half, but hopefully we'll shoot it (in the future) better, like we did in the second half. We just need to be able to do that for four quarters.

"Even the first half I wasn't real upset. Defensively, I thought we played really, really hard. We made some mistakes and overcommitted in places and left ourselves wide open and had a few glitches in there. But to only give up 29 points in the first half, I felt pretty good with that, especially knowing where some of those mistakes were and how easy some of those are going to be to fix.

"With more experience, I think we'll be fine. I was not at all disappointed with what I saw tonight."

Brent Sexauer led the Tigers with 12 points, J.T. Cristobal and Ricky Castillo both added eight, Dion Salinas and Luke Filipovich both scored four, Doug Long added three, Michael Daniels two and Alex Rodriguez,one.

Mountain Home shot 31 percent (15/49) from the field, including four of 13 treys (31 percent), but made just 47 percent (8/17) of their free throws.

Rocky Mountain shot 41 percent (19/46) from the field, including a hot 53 percent (8/15) beyond the arc. They made just seven of 17 (41 percent) from the foul line.

The Tigers lost the rebound battle, 36-26. Dion Salinas led Mountain Home, bringing down eight boards.

Mountain View 59

Mountain Home 28

The Tigers traveled to Mountain View High School in Meridian last Friday night to face the Mavericks in non-conference basketball, losing to the Mavericks 59-28.

Mountain Home stayed with the defending 5A state champs and trailed just 21-16 after a quarter, but then had problems getting the ball through the hoop the rest of the game, scoring just three points in the second quarter (trailing 33-19 at the half), four points in the third (trailing 48-23), and five points in the fourth, to lose 59-28.

"Not very consistent," said Coach Kerfoot of their offensive effort against Mountain View. "We've just got to work on getting consistency, and I think a lot of it was we got a little tired. We quit doing little things that helped get us open, and they started beating us wherever we went. Wherever we were going to go, they beat us there, and then turnovers came and they got some run-out buckets.

"I thought they beat us in transition -- too many transition buckets -- and I think some of that was fatigue. That first game (Rocky Mountain) took a lot out of us, and that's one thing between now and next Thursday, we've got to get the heart back in, the legs back in, and get to where we can play four quarters hard and consistently."

Brent Sexauer led the Tigers in scoring with seven points, J.T. Cristobal and Michael Daniels both put in six, Ricky Castillo added five and Doug Long scored two points.

Mountain Home shot a frigid 24 percent (11/46) from the field, 28 percent (5/17) on three-pointers, and unbelievable as it may seem, went to the foul line just two times, hitting one of them for 50 percent.

Mountain View ended up shooting 47 percent (24/51) from the field, hitting 26 percent (5/19) of their long balls, but hit just 38 percent (6/16) of their free throws.

The taller Mavericks won the battle of the boards, 36-21, with Dion Salinas bringing down five to lead Mountain Home.

The Tigers open conference play at home Thursday night against the Columbia Wildcats. They travel to Nampa on Saturday night for another conference game.