By Noah Dalton
PAOLI — In their final Patoka Lake Athletic Conference matchup of the season, Mitchell High School were bested by Indiana’s #10 ranked 2A team Paoli on Wednesday, falling 67-42 after falling behind to an early onslaught from the Rams.
The two teams entered the matchup occupying the top spots in the conference, with Paoli perfect at 4-0 and Mitchell tied with Orleans at just one loss in second place.
With Paoli’s victory, they secured a conference championship. They’re just one game, Friday’s matchup against Crawford County, away from completing an unbeaten sweep of the PLAC and claiming sole ownership of the crown. Should they lose that matchup, they’d finish tied with Orleans, who they’d share the PLAC championship with.
The Rams jumped out to an early lead against Mitchell after scoring eight straight in the first quarter.
Paoli was hot to start the game, knocking down a high percentage of their early looks, particularly compared to the Bluejackets, who struggled to find the bottom of the net. In the first half, Paoli knocked down 52% of their shot attempts, compared to just 35% from Mitchell, helping them to take a commanding 37-20 lead at halftime.
“I’m not an excuse guy, I don’t like to make excuses. I thought we defended actions to the best of our ability in the first quarter, but they hit shots,” said Bluejackets head coach Clint Roesler.
“And, with that comes a lot of momentum. Basketball is a very momentum-based game, and we could never really regain any momentum back from how they started.”
Despite a few positive stretches throughout the night, where Mitchell would manage to knock down a couple of consecutive shots, the Rams were able to match them on each such occurrence, maintaining a 20-plus point lead until the final buzzer.
Another key advantage Paoli had was in the rebound column, nearly doubling the Bluejackets total for the night with 35 to Mitchell’s 21 boards, with many of the Rams coming on the offensive end, granting them second and sometimes third and fourth tries on some of their possessions.
That effort was led by Chad Sullivan, who pulled down 12 rebounds to earn a double-double, paired with his 16 points.
“My message to the guys was ‘I don’t know that they’re more talented than us, but we beat ourselves on self-inflicted wounds’, and that ties into rebounding,” said Roesler.
“They’re a physical team. They’re a big team. Sullivan is an athlete, and they go for rebounds. There were times where we had a couple of guys versus all five of them trying to go for an offensive rebound and you’re going to lose that battle more times than not.”
Austin Mosier and Gavin Robinson were the only Bluejackets to score in double figures, scoring 16 each.
Rams’ guard Fletcher Cole was the leading scorer on the night on either side with 18 points. In addition to Sullivan’s 16 points, Cooper Spires added 10 to help Paoli.
Throughout the season thus far, Mitchell has been able to erase some sizable early deficits on their way to late-game comebacks, most recently coming back to lose to Edgewood by two after a game-winning three after trailing by as many as 16-points in the first half.
With just one more regular season game left, a battle against defending 3A state champion Scottsburg on Friday, Roesler said his team will need to tune some things up as they head towards the sectional tournament, not allowing themselves to fall behind early and remaining engaged in a situation where they do.
“As the game got further and further away from us, we started doing more and more uncharacteristic things and we just can’t do that. We’ve done a pretty good job of being able to stay in a game if we’ve got off to a slow start or battle back, but this is a different team than those teams that we’ve had to do that against,” he said.
“We’ve got to figure out how to get out to a little bit quicker of a start. We’ve got to figure out how to just keep battling because come tournament time it’s all on the line.”
Friday’s game against the Warriors will be Senior Night, with the Bluejackets looking to leave The Hive with one final home court win for their senior group, which consists of six players this year: Austin Mosier, Carl Chenault, Tate Woods, Aiden Pridemore, Nate Robertson and Logan Kender.
“I think it’s really important. It sets a tone for us, we go in with a little bit of momentum instead of scurrying to try to figure out how to make sure that we’re not licking wounds like we are tonight,” said Roesler.
“Scottsburg is playing really good basketball right now. They’re obviously not the team they were last year, but they’re playing teams tough and they’ve got quite a few wins down the stretch here to end their season after a really slow start. We’ve got to come in ready to battle. It’s not going to be an easy game.”
Box Score
Mitchell Stats
Points: 42 | FGM: 17/46 | FG%: 36.96% | 3PM: 3/12 | 3P%: 25.00% | FTM: 4/8 | FT%: 50.00% | Rebounds: 21 | Team Turnovers: 15
Individual Player Stats for Mitchell:
#2 Austin Mosier – Points: 16 | FGM: 6/13 | FG%: 46.15% | 3PM: 3/7 | 3P%: 42.86% | FTM: 1/1 | FT%: 100.00% | Rebounds: 3
#1 Aiden Pridemore – Points: 0 | FGM: 0/2 | FG%: 0.00% | 3PM: 0/1 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 2
#40 Nate Robertson – Points: 2 | FGM: 1/9 | FG%: 11.11% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 5
#22 Gavin Robinson – Points: 16 | FGM: 7/13 | FG%: 53.85% | 3PM: 0/1 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 1/4 | FT%: 25.00% | Rebounds: 3
#12 Carl Chenault – Points: 4 | FGM: 2/5 | FG%: 40.00% | 3PM: 0/1 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 0/1 | FT%: 0.00% | Rebounds: 5
#4 Malakai Goodman – Points: 2 | FGM: 0/0 | FG%: 0% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 2/2 | FT%: 100.00% | Rebounds: 0
#20 Kaden Mullis – Points: 0 | FGM: 0/0 | FG%: 0% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 1
#3 Tate Woods – Points: 2 | FGM: 1/4 | FG%: 25.00% | 3PM: 0/2 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 2
Paoli Stats
Points: 67 | FGM: 27/54 | FG%: 50.00% | 3PM: 7/15 | 3P%: 46.67% | FTM: 6/17 | FT%: 35.29% | Rebounds: 35 | Team Turnovers: 8
Individual Player Stats for Paoli:
#14 Fletcher Cole – Points: 18 | FGM: 6/16 | FG%: 37.50% | 3PM: 3/5 | 3P%: 60.00% | FTM: 3/4 | FT%: 75.00% | Rebounds: 5
#2 Treighlin Minton – Points: 6 | FGM: 3/5 | FG%: 60.00% | 3PM: 0/1 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 0/2 | FT%: 0.00% | Rebounds: 6
#4 Dave Padgett – Points: 5 | FGM: 2/3 | FG%: 66.67% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 1/4 | FT%: 25.00% | Rebounds: 2
#30 Dakota Apple – Points: 2 | FGM: 1/1 | FG%: 100.00% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 1
#32 Chad Sullivan – Points: 16 | FGM: 7/13 | FG%: 53.85% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 2/5 | FT%: 40.00% | Rebounds: 12
#22 Cooper Spires – Points: 10 | FGM: 4/6 | FG%: 66.67% | 3PM: 2/2 | 3P%: 100.00% | FTM: 0/2 | FT%: 0.00% | Rebounds: 2
#12 Kirkland Hughes – Points: 5 | FGM: 2/7 | FG%: 28.57% | 3PM: 1/5 | 3P%: 20.00% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 2
#54 Lydon Poe – Points: 5 | FGM: 2/2 | FG%: 100.00% | 3PM: 1/1 | 3P%: 100.00% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 3
#20 Hayden Bostock – Points: 0 | FGM: 0/1 | FG%: 0.00% | 3PM: 0/1 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 2
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