By Noah Dalton
Mitchell High School fell to 1-15 on the year after suffering losses on Thursday and Saturday, falling to Scottsburg, 68-26 and Linton-Stockton, 55-21.
The Warriors started the matchup on a 10-0 run and never looked back, knocking down eight first-half threes on their way to a 30-point lead at halftime, 48-18. They didn’t take their foot off the gas in the second half, outscoring the Bluejackets 20-8 in the last two quarters on their way to a decisive win.
“Credit to them. That’s a team that put in work and you can tell that they’ve spent time working on their game,” Mitchell head coach Dakota Brasher said regarding Scottsburg. “They had four or five shooters out there sometimes. Really tough to guard and as the floor spaces out, it doesn’t allow you to help as much and they’re a really, really good fundamental basketball team.”
Brasher said that the Bluejackets were able to make some adjustments defensively in the second half, limiting the Warriors outside makes to just two during that stretch.
“We tried to not help on same side drives, so we took that away. And that’s something that we practice. We needed to reiterate it, which took away some stuff making them, making them throw skip passes as part of it. Part of it was closing out with our hands up high and running shooters off the line,” he said.
Brasher also noted his team’s energy as a strong point for them in the loss.
“Energy and effort and intensity for the most part was really, really good. I thought we scored the ball in the half-court pretty well and then they made some defensive adjustments and upped the pressure again a little bit. But our energy and enthusiasm, effort and communication, for the most part were off the charts. We had a couple of transition mishaps in the second half. It’s gonna happen with a young team, but for the most part, our energy is there and we can win games playing with our energy.”
Against the Miners, Mitchell met a similar fate, falling behind 29-11 in the first half. They were able to play a much closer third quarter, only being outscored by one point, 7-6, with Jillian Bond scoring all of the Bluejackets’ points in the period, going 3-5 from the floor during that stretch.
In the fourth, Linton-Stockton pushed further down on the gas pedal, scoring 19, while allowing Mitchell to only score four to close out the win.
Bond led the Bluejackets in scoring in both matchups, scoring 18 against the Warriors and 12 against the Miners, also pulling down 18 rebounds in that game for a double-double.
