By Noah Dalton
FRENCH LICK – The saying goes: When it rains it pours and Friday night was a torrential downpour in French Lick that saw Mitchell lose its first conference matchup of the season to Springs Valley by an emphatic final score of 75-12.
The game began simply enough with a three-and-out drive from the Bluejackets, eventually turning things over to the Blackhawks near the midfield.
On the ensuing drive, Springs Valley senior running back Christian Hamilton scored on a 52-yard carry on the second play, giving his team an early advantage.
Then, Mitchell dropped the kickoff that followed the scoring play, turning the ball back over to the Blackhawks and giving them possession near the red zone, at Mitchell’s 31-yard line.
Once again, a few plays later Hamilton found the endzone, extending their lead further.
The Bluejackets took over on their own 35-yard line after the kickoff flew out of bounds. On the first play of the drive, Mitchell fumbled the ball during an attempted handoff, turning possession over once again to Springs Valley.
The very next play, the Blackhawks scored again, this time on a 32-yard carry from James Walls, giving them a 21-0 lead after the extra point.
From Hamilton’s first touchdown to the one scored by Walls, just 34 seconds ticked off the game clock.
By the end of the first quarter, that lead extended to 42-0 in favor of Springs Valley.
Mistakes like fumbles and untimely penalties began to pile up for Mitchell in the period, something that head coach Zach See felt his young team had a difficult time shaking as the game carried on.
“Younger kids aren’t used to this speed, this pace of game yet, right? And, younger kids, they put their heads down easier, right? Like, they make one mistake and they think, Oh, it’s the end of the world. I’ve always said, in baseball, football, whatever I’ve coached, next play. It has got to be a next play mentality,” said See.
“You’re not going to be perfect. I told these boys, you’re never going to be perfect, but if you make a mistake and you sit there and dwell on it, chances are that your next mistake is going to be even worse. So, you’ve just got to you got to stay positive.”
Those missteps didn’t just hurt Mitchell from a mentality standpoint.
For almost each of the Blackhawks’ scoring drives, they were set up with good field position, often in Bluejackets’ territory around the 30-yard line, something See said contributed to the snowball.
“Those types of things hurt our defense. We come out and have mistakes like that on offense in the opening drive, and then we put our defense in a pinch, because now they’re working with 35, 25 yards on the field, and it’s hard to stop any team from that that close to the goal line or the end zone. So it’s just little things and that’s what we preached in the huddle, to clean up the little things,” he said.
“If you guys clean up the little things, I told them, you’ve got the athletes, you’ve got the football players, you’ve got the knowledge of football. We just have to clean up the little mistakes that turn into big, big mistakes.”
Mitchell scored a touchdown of their own in the second quarter, showing some resilience against the initial onslaught from Springs Valley.
On a third down, a pass from quarterback Cam Gilstap that was batted up into the air by a Blackhawks’ defender was pulled in by Gavin Robinson, who found some room to pick up the necessary yards to keep their drive alive.
That set up the scoring play that came shortly after, a 41-yard reception from Malakai Goodman that saw him speed past Springs Valley’s secondary on his way to the endzone.
Other than that, the second quarter also belonged to the Blackhawks, albeit in a less dominant fashion.
They scored three more touchdowns to take a 62-6 lead into the locker room at the half, initiating a running clock for the final two quarters due to the IHSAA mercy rule.
The Bluejackets showed some signs of life in the second half despite the monstrous deficit, scoring a touchdown on a 53-yard connection from Gilstrap to Tate Woods and later forcing a turnover on downs in the fourth quarter.
Springs Valley found the endzone twice more in the second half thanks to rushing touchdowns from Caelum Qualkenbush (three-yard carry) and Brycen Cave (44-yard carry, both of which came in the third quarter.
After an 0-2 start to the year, Mitchell will take the field again next Friday, this time traveling to West Washington (1-2) for another Patoka Lake Athletic Conference matchup.
In the meantime, it will be important for the Bluejackets to put this one in their rearview mirror and enter the next week of preparation ready to work with clear minds for their battle with the Senators, according to See.
“I just told them, after a game like this, it’s easy to fall apart, or it’s easy just to give in, call it quits. It’s easy to do that after something like this, you know? And I just told them, like I told him last week, I said, this is where you’ve got to become stronger. This is where you’ve got to become closer. So, it’s just staying together, being one, being a family, and at the end of the day, this game’s over, there’s nothing you can do about it,” See said.
“So, you’ve got to come in Monday, fresh mind, positive attitude, and you’ve got to keep working, because as hard as we’re working and the effort that we’re getting, things are going to turn around. That’s what I’m trying to get them to understand. It’s not going to be perfect. It’s not always going to go our way. But, as long as you keep the faith and you keep pushing, things will turn and things will go the way that they need to go.”
