By Noah Dalton
MARENGO – After suffering a loss in their last outing against Bloomfield, Mitchell High School picked up their second win of the year on Friday, besting Crawford County in comfortable fashion 54-26.
The Bluejackets grabbed the lead early in the matchup and never looked back, maintaining the advantage for the entirety of the game. According to head coach Jackson Ryan, the key to Mitchell’s victory was the team’s unselfishness on offense, which was spurred by a difficult week of practice after their loss to the Cardinals last Saturday.
“I’ll be honest, I was very disappointed after Bloomfield, and I didn’t really have a lot of answers for what we were going through. We had a tough week in practice. I thought Wednesday was an extremely ugly practice, but I think we played through it,” he said. “I don’t know what it was, but the light switched on and last night we had a great practice and that carried over to tonight. It was just sharing the basketball, in my opinion, and when we do that, we’re a very, very tough team to beat and a lot of fun to watch. So we just need to do it consistently.”
On offense, Dawson Irwin and Ben Seitzinger led the way for the Bluejackets, scoring 10 each. Tanner Conrad was the top scorer for the Wolfpack, finishing the game with seven points.
Holding Crawford County to just 26 points, Friday’s game was the lowest point total allowed from Mitchell during Ryan’s time leading the program, which began when he was hired in 2020. He credits the team’s discipline and depth for their success on the defensive end.
“Defensively with our depth, we’re really trying to press a whole 84 feet defensive game, and looking to run and jump when those opportunities present themselves. And then once we get in the halfcourt, still applying that pressure, but also being disciplined enough to make them take a tough shot or question a shot. I feel like we did that tonight,” he said.
“I can go up and down the line of all the guys tonight that did great. Gavin Robinson and Bryson Shoults, game in and game out are gonna be guarding, the other team’s best player. He’s a very good player and I don’t know what he ended up with, but they did a very, very good job on him. Making him take tough shots and he was gassed by the end of it. So, I appreciate their effort. But, team defense, team rebounding are things that we put a huge emphasis on, especially coming out of that Bloomfield game and I felt like we did that tonight.”
This win brings the Bluejackets to 2-1 on the season, with a perfect 2-0 record so far in Patoka Lake Athletic Conference games. Looming in the conference are Paoli (1-0) and Orleans, the #3 ranked team at 1A (2-0).
Mitchell will get a break from PLAC games until Dec. 19, when they’ll take on the Bulldogs. Until then, Ryan said the team is looking to remain focused on what stands directly in front of them, which in this case is Eastern Greene (1-2), who they’ll face at The Hive on Saturday.
“I think that you when you look at the recent history of the PLAC, the two teams to beat are Orleans and Paoli. You know, that next game for us, conference wise is just so huge for us and everybody really involved in the conference race, to get that game at home and to get the Paoli game at home are huge,” Ryan said”
“We don’t want to look ahead, and we’re excited to play Eastern Greene tomorrow. But at the end of the day, to be 2-0 in the conference, to be in the driver’s seat right now, control your own destiny, sitting at the top, that’s a good thing. And hopefully, we can continue that when we see Orleans at the end of December.”
Stats
Mitchell
- Austin Mosier: 5 points, 2/4 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Dawson Irwin: 10 points, 4/12 shooting, 0/2 FT, 5 rebounds
- Ben Seitzinger: 10 points, 5/7 shooting, 0/0 FT, 6 rebounds
- Kale England: 7 points, 2/4 shooting, 0/0 FT, 4 rebounds
- Gavin Robinson: 3 points, 1/2 shooting, 1/2 FT, 0 rebounds
- Bryson Shoults: 3 points, 1/5 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Aiden Pridemore: 2 points, 1/2 shooting, 0/0 FT, 1 rebound
- Nate Robertson: 8 points, 4/5 shooting, 0/3 FT, 5 rebounds
- Carl Chenault: 0 points, 0/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 3 rebounds
- Garrett Floerke: 2 points, 1/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 1 rebound
- Connor Teague: 0 points, 0/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 1 rebound
- Lucas Gosnell: 0 points, 0/1 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Tate Woods: 4 points, 2/2 shooting, 0/0 FT, 2 rebounds
Crawford County
- Laken Belcher: 6 points, 2/8 shooting, 2/4 FT, 3 rebounds
- Nash Stroud: 6 points, 3/8 shooting, 0/2 FT, 10 rebounds
- AJ Bell: 4 points, 1/6 shooting, 2/4 FT, 1 rebound
- Quentin Bell: 0 points, 0/3 shooting, 0/0 FT, 2 rebound
- Tanner Conrad: 7 points, 3/7 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- J.T. Averill: 0 points, 0/2 shooting, 0/0 FT, 2 rebounds
- Rease Allen: 0 points, 0/4 shooting, 0/0 FT, 0 rebounds
- Devin Decker: 1 point, 0/0 shooting, 1/2 FT, 0 rebounds
- Ian Sturgeon: 2 points, 1/2 shooting, 0/1 FT, 0 rebounds
