Tigers prepare for season opener

The Mountain Home Tigers open their baseball season with road games Thursday and Friday.

Mountain Home Tiger head baseball coach Mark Cotton said this year's turnout for high school baseball was a bit low, but they have good players.

"The turnout was low. As far as just numbers, we only had about 28 kids come out to try out, and that's never a good thing, but we have a really good core group of players.

"We have about 14 kids in our sophomore class, and that's a very talented group. We've got a good core group of seniors this year -- Skyler Podesek, Skylar Quintal, Jesse Rodriguez and John Kennison -- and I hope I'm not leaving anyone out. I think our varsity team is going to be very competitive this year.

"We just threw some bullpen, and I think we have seven guys that are starters, so we're going to have some things to figure out in our pitching rotation," Cotton said.

"I'm looking forward to the season. If these guys are very hungry, I see us being very successful."

The Tigers will be out to improve upon last year's 10-16 season. Coach Cotton sees Bishop Kelly, Middleton and Skyview as the top contenders in the conference.

"Bishop Kelly, they're always going to be tough, and Middleton is the team last year I was talking about really coming on strong, and they did, they made it to state. That's a dangerous team. And Skyview, they're always a good program, so I think those are the three teams to beat, but as you saw last year, we were all kind of bunched up there, and it was a very competitive league last year.

"The only teams that really separated themselves were Skyview and BK a little bit, but outside of that, I thought there was some good baseball all through the conference, and I'd expect the same thing this year."

The Tigers hosted a jamboree with Bishop Kelly, Emmett and Wood River last Saturday.

Mountain Home opens its season on the road this week, traveling to Kuna on Thursday and then to Emmett on Friday. Both conference games have 4:30 p.m. start times.