By Noah Dalton
Mitchell High School travelled to Charles E. Meyer Gymnasium in Scottsburg on Thursday to take on Scottsburg High School.
In what proved to be a difficult matchup for the Bluejackets, they went on to lose 54-15.
Mitchell struggled to put points on the board Thursday night, which head coach Tim Haworth attributed to the pressure applied by the Warriorettes’ defense.
“The pressure, obviously is a big factor,” he said. “It’s hard to run your offense when you’re throwing it out, when they’re taking it away from you, going out and shooting layups, basically.”
Perhaps the most telling stat on the night, outside of the final point total, was the difference in turnovers between the two teams, with Scottsburg netting 20 takeaways on the night, while only giving up seven.
This defeats is the third straight for the Bluejackets, who have encountered similar struggles in previous games.
“Unfortunately for us, it just, it’s almost like a rerun. We’ve seen this show before,” Haworth said.
“You’ve got to know that pressure is coming and you’ve got to accept pressure and be able to do it. But you know, right now when teams speed us up, it’s even hard to run a play when you’re getting sped up and you’re more worried about losing the ball than you are running a play, or trying to score. So, that’s kind of where we’re at right now until we can prove that we’re not going to do that,” he added.
Scottsburg got off to a quick 6-0 start in the first, with the Bluejackets’ first points of the game coming on a Jillian Bond basket with around six minutes left in the quarter. With the score at 6-2 afterwards, that was the closest the game was for Mitchell from that point forward.
Later in the quarter, Mylea Slone knocked down a jumper for the Bluejackets, which was there only other basket of the quarter. The Warriorettes had five players find the bottom of the net in the first, with the quarter ultimately ending with an 18-4 lead for Scottsburg.
The second quarter was the highest scoring period for Mitchell’s offense, though they were scoreless for nearly the first four minutes of the quarter, with a basket from Brooklyn Peterson opening things up for them. Slone added five points, including a three-pointer, to close the quarter for the Bluejackets.
Though Mitchell’s scoring output improved, the Warriorettes balanced offensive attack continued in the second, with six separate players able to score. They continued to add to their lead, entering the half up by 22.
Zoey Smith, who made her return to the Bluejackets’ lineup on Thursday after missing the last few games with an illness, cashed a layup to score the first points of the second half for Mitchell. The team’s only other points in the third quarter came from Bond layup.
Meanwhile, things had slowed for the previously rolling Scottsburg offense, who posted their lowest scoring quarter of the game to that point, scoring 11. Despite slowing, they extended their lead to 29 heading into the final quarter.
After a quick few buckets to start the fourth, a steal and transition layup from sophomore guard Ellie Richardson extended the Warriorettes’ lead to 35, initialing the running clock for the rest of the game.
Haworth believes his team will bounce back after the tough start to their season, though a more condensed schedule down the stretch including three makeup games will make that more difficult. The next matchup for the Bluejackets is on Saturday afternoon, when they welcome undefeated Linton-Stockton (10-0) to The Hive. That game will tip-off at 1:30 p.m.
“They’re resilient, they’ll bounce back. But we’ve only got one day to do it,” Haworth said.
“So we can’t feel too sorry for ourselves because then we have to turn around and play Linton, and then on (Dec.) 27, we have to turn around and play Pekin Eastern, then on the (Dec.) 29 we go to Princeton. So, we don’t have time. We just don’t have time to do the things that needed to be done in the summertime and individual time and stuff like that. So, we’ve got to find some answers and find them quick so we can be competitive,” he continued.
Stats
Mitchell
- Mylea Slone – 7 points, 2/9 shooting, 2/2 FT, 4 rebounds
- Brooklyn Peterson – 2 points, 1/5 shooting, 0/1 FT, 2 rebounds
- Jillian Bond – 4 points, 2/6 shooting, 0/2 FT, 8 rebounds
- Malaya Tanglao – 0 points, 0/4 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Taylor Lee – 0 points, 0/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 1 rebound
- Zoey Smith – 2 points, 1/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 3 rebounds
- Izzy Duncan – 0 points, 0/1 shooting, 0/1 FT, 0 rebounds
Scottsburg
- Ellie Richardson – 15 points, 7/13 shooting, 0/0 FT, 5 rebounds
- Carrie Hiler – 11 points, 4/5 shooting, 0/0 FT, 5 rebounds
- Hannah Stutsman – 4 points, 1/7 shooting, 2/2 FT, 4 rebounds
- Lola Fouts – 2 points, 1/9 shooting, 0/0 FT, 3 rebounds
- Katrina Cooper – 5 points, 2/4 shooting, 1/2 FT, 3 rebounds
- Haley Thomas – 2 points, 1/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Sonya King – 2 points, 1/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Hannah Thomas – 2 points, 1/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Madison Richey – 0 points, 0/0 shooting, 0/0 FT, 2 rebounds
- Abbey Martin – 4 points, 1/1 shooting, 2/2 FT, 0 rebounds
- Taneisha Griffin – 8 points, 4/6 shooting, 0/2 FT, 6 rebounds
