By Noah Dalton
Things have yet to get any easier for Mitchell High School, who suffered their tenth loss of the season on Saturday, once again falling to strong opponent in an undefeated Linton-Stockton team, who are the No. 7 ranked 2A team in the state.
The Bluejackets have faced a difficult schedule thus far in the season, with some of their other losses coming at the hands of IBCA No. 4 Bedford North Lawrence, Lanesville, who are the top ranked 1A team in Indiana and Brownstown-Central, the No. 10 2A team in the state.
Despite losing in the end 63-33, Mitchell head coach Tim Haworth felt his team competed well early on against Linton-Stockton.
“I felt like we competed the first half. I mean, obviously, we’re playing a good ballclub. Again, just seems like that’s where we’re at in our schedule. But I felt like our girls came out and played with a purpose,” he said.
The Bluejackets’ last game against Scottsburg was perhaps their most disappointing of the season, with the team only able to score 15 points over the course of matchup, which ended in a 39-point defeat.
In that game, Haworth felt his team struggled to keep up with the pace of the Warriorettes. Though he saw similar struggles against the Miners, he felt that he saw visible improvement in the way the team dealt with facing speed and intensity.
“One of the things that we as team wise as a whole what we’ve been seeing, versus Linton, versus Scottsburg, versus Lanesville, versus BNL, which is speed, quickness. And those are physical things, but I thought mentally, I thought we were into the game a little bit more, we made them make adjustments,” Haworth said. “In the Scottsburg game, they didn’t have to adjust anything, you know? We made them call a couple of times, to make them adjust a little bit, which is good for our kids. So yeah, very happy. Very pleased with that,” he continued.
The first started with each team scoring a quick bucket before a triple from Linton-Stockton shot them out to an early lead, one which they maintained for the remaining duration of play.
By the end of the first, the Miners had outscore Mitchell by 10, though the Bluejackets were able to score 13 in the period, nearly topping their entire game total from Thursday’s game against Scottsburg.
Mitchell also showed improved ball security in the quarter, turning the ball over just three times in the period, which they matched by getting three takeaways from the Miners.
Senior guard Mylea Slone led the charge for the Bluejackets early, knocking down two three-pointers on her way to nine points in the first quarter.
The following quarter was when things began to snowball for Linton-Stockton.
After giving the ball up just three times in the first, the Bluejackets turned the ball over seven times in the second quarter. Struggles securing possession led to an offensive halt for Mitchell, who scored just four points in the quarter, a basket from Jillian Bond and two free-throws from Brooklyn Peterson.
Despite a stronger showing from their defense, who held the Miners to 13 points in the period, the Bluejackets found themselves trailing by 19 heading into the half.
Shot attempts were not falling for Mitchell in the second quarter with the team shooting just 16% from the field. In the third, the Bluejackets one again shot just 1/6 from the floor, with their only made basket coming from a jumper from Kaytyiah Cox.
This time around, Mitchell was able to find points at the free-throw line, making five of the eight attempts.
Linton-Stockton did not take their foot off the gas pedal in the third, continuing to score and growing their lead to 31 by the end of the quarter.
The Bluejackets perhaps played their best quarter of the night in the fourth, outscoring the Miners 9-8 in the period and forcing four turnovers while just turning the ball over twice themselves, though they were not able to change the outcome of the game.
Though this was the team’s fourth consecutive loss, Haworth was pleased to see some of what they had worked on translate to improvement in game situations.
“It’s a better feeling. The results are still the same, but there was a different feel and for us, that’s huge. And that’s what we’ve got to keep doing. But overall, I thought our kids did a better job tonight and I felt a lot better about some of the steps that we made,” he said.
Starting guard Malaya Tanglao was unable to play in the game after sustaining a leg injury. With Mitchell having a little over a week until their next game, Haworth expects to have her back in the lineup in time for that matchup.
That game will be on Dec. 27, where the Bluejackets will take on Eastern (Pekin), a makeup game from their previously scheduled matchup from Dec. 6, which was postponed.
Haworth expects to see pressure from the Musketeers similar to what they’ve recently encountered from other squads.
“They’re a solid ballclub,” he said. “We should be getting pretty good at this because we keep seeing the same type of pressure. And that’s kind of what Pekin is going to do. They’re a solid ballclub you know, we’re still going to come out and we’re going to try to play to our strengths.”
Stats
Mitchell
- Mylea Slone – 13 points, 5/13 shooting, 1/2 FT, 4 rebounds
- Brooklyn Peterson – 7 points, 2/4 shooting, 3/4 FT, 4 rebounds
- Jillian Bond – 11 points, 2/8 shooting, 7/12 FT, 8 rebounds
- Zoey Smith – 0 points, 0/1 shooting, 0/1 FT, 0 rebounds
- Taylor Lee – 0 points, 0/3 shooting, 0/0 FT, 3 rebounds
- Briley Dicks – 0 points, 0/3 shooting, 0/0 FT, 1 rebound
- Kaytyiah Cox – 2 points, 1/2 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
Linton-Stockton
- Carsyn Chambers – 6 points, 2/4 shooting, 0/0 FT, 3 rebounds
- Kylie Bradie – 3 points, 1/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 1 rebound
- Bradie Chambers – 19 points, 5/11 shooting, 7/9 FT, 4 rebounds
- Sydney Jerrells – 12 points, 6/9 shooting, 0/0 FT, 2 rebounds
- Taryn Thuis – 1 point, 0/0 shooting, 1/2 FT, 3 rebounds
- Addisyn McKee – 10 points, 3/6 shooting, 1/2 shooting, 0 rebounds
- Isabella Franklin – 2 points, 0/1 shooting, 2/2 FT, 1 rebound
- Claire Stanton – 2 points, 1/3 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Becca Robbins – 5 points, 2/2 shooting, 1/2 FT, 2 rebounds
- Alyvia McKee – 3 points, 1/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 1 rebound
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