By Noah Dalton
BLOOMFIELD – Mitchell began their 2024 season on Tuesday night, with the Bluejackets traveling to Bloomfield to take on the Cardinals.
Despite a strong second half effort from Mitchell, Bloomfield managed to secure the win 40-31 to start their season.
The two sides traded buckets in the first quarter leading to an even game early on, before the Cardinals were able to take over, scoring 20 unanswered during a run that continued until midway through the third quarter.
Though they were being held scoreless, the Bluejackets persisted with their gameplan; which was to execute their offense with the goal of generating open three-point looks.
Those shots were not falling in the first half, with Mitchell finishing the two quarters at 0-16 from beyond the arc. Their fortunes began to turn around in the third, when Paisley Modglin buried a three to end their drought. The Bluejackets proceed to knock down 3 more deep shots in a row, going on a 12-0 run of their own to begin cutting down Bloomfield’s lead.
“I trust our girls to make shots. We put the work in. It’s a wake up call for them, like the work’s never over. We’ve got to get in the gym, and we’ve got to develop confident shooters. I think we had some first game jitters. We’ve got a lot of young girls out there playing, but I trust our girls,” said Mitchell head coach Dakota Brasher.
“Tonight, they didn’t fall in the first half. They fell in the second, but they didn’t fall in the first. We’ll be a really fun brand of basketball. Shots are going to start falling for us. We’re going to shoot a lot of threes and it’s going to be fun to watch. That’s how we’re going to play,” Brasher continued.
Their momentum carried into the fourth, where they were able to knock down three more three-pointers, along with a couple of looks from inside the line to further reduce the Cardinal’s lead to just two possessions , 33-26, after trailing by 20 early on in the third quarter.
With just a few minutes left to play, Bloomfield needed someone to step up in order to fend off a rallying Mitchell team and that was Adalyn Figg.
Figg scored the team’s final seven points, including going 5/5 from the free-throw line in the quarter to secure the victory for the Cardinals. She finished the night with 12 points to lead all scorers, her teammate, Lani Graves, added 11.
For Mitchell, Leighann Thompson led the way with 10 points, with Karlee Gabhart scoring six.
A point of pride on the night for the Bluejackets and Brasher was the team’s defense, which kept up consistent pressure and managed to force 21 turnovers.
“The defense has really carried over from last year. Last year, I really harped on playing man and really, really pressuring and bothering the basketball and our rotations are really good. We still make some mistakes and some mental errors and things of that nature, but for the most part, our defensive efforts were really, really good,” he said.
Despite the final result, Brasher said the matchup helped to confirm what he’d so far felt was true about this year’s team, which is that they’re determined to improve.
“We have a really good group of girls in the locker room. They’re here for the right reasons, and there’s no quit in them at all. Not just in high school, when I coached college as well, I’ve been around teams that it’s not fun coming to practice every day. This group is really fun to come in and practice every day and we’re going to get better and we’re going to grow,” said Brasher.
Mitchell will next take the floor on the road this Thursday against Salem with a 7:30 tip-off.
