By Noah Dalton
NASHVILLE – Mitchell High School was defeated by Brown County on Tuesday night by a final score of 76-51, despite a season-high scoring performance from Jillian Bond, who finished the matchup with 41 points.
The Bluejackets ended the first quarter trailing by just five, before the Eagles went on a huge second-period run, scoring 14 unanswered to give them a lead they’d hold for the rest of the matchup.
Mitchell were able to outscore them 20-19 in the third, behind 10 points from Bond, as well as field goals from Anna Sowders, Asiah Saunders and Davaney Roop, but were unable to get the stops needed to erase the earlier deficit.
“The 20-19 quarter, the 20 looks good, the 19 is the problem we have to fix,” said Bluejackets head coach Dakota Brasher. “Part of it is turnovers. I will be interested to see how many points off turnovers we gave because that number led to them scoring 76. It wasn’t all halfcourt or transition defense. There were some live ball turnovers and they’re just going down and making layups. That’s part of it. You have to find the positives and take the positives out of it. There are positives, and then you have to keep working on what we know we need to get better at.”
Bond scored another 14 in the fourth, making 18 total field goals on the night, also going 4/10 from the free throw line.
“She had a really good game. It’s no secret, our offense runs through her and she’s a good enough player that teams are now going to start double-teaming her. She can make those passes and she’s going to trust her teammates, and we’ve been putting in work and we’re going to knock down shots that we need to be knocking down,” Brasher said.
Brasher credited Brown County for their performance, saying Mitchell will need to improve their play on the defense end going forward, as they continue searching for their first win of the season having now started 0-8.
“We had to do a better job of going out and executing the game plan. We had a game plan. We knew who their players were. They’ve got some players, a good overall basketball team. I know they’ve got four or five seniors and it shows that they’re just a little bit more experienced. They ran the floor pretty well and know what shots they should be looking for,” he said.
As for us, we’re still trying to come together as a group. And offensively I think we did that. Offensively we look pretty good. But defensively, we still have to be more connected. And that’s what we have to keep working on.”
