By Noah Dalton
MITCHELL – Mitchell High School were crowned Cement City Classic champions on Thursday, beating Franklin County 47-42 in the finals to conclude an undefeated run at the event.
The Bluejackets earned the crown in a tense matchup against the Wildcats, which came down to a one-possession game in the final minute of play.
Franklin County jumped out to an early five-point advantage, thanks to their three-point shooting in the first quarter, where they were able to knock down 57%% of their shots from beyond the arc (4/7).
Their zone defense limited Mitchell’s looks, forcing them to take most of their shots in the quarter from deep, where they weren’t able to find as much success, shooting just 40% from that distance themselves (2/5).
The roles reversed in the second quarter, with the Bluejackets hitting 3/5 attempts from deep and outscoring the Wildcats 11-9 to close the gap to just three at the half.
Leading the way for Mitchell at the half was Austin Mosier, who scored nine points, knocking down 3/5 attempts from downtown to keep his team in the game.
Bluejackets’ head coach Jackson Ryan said Franklin County’s zone defense slowed the pace of the game, forcing them away from their preferred playstyle for most of the first half.
“When we can score and set up our press and get into what we want to do, trying to speed teams up, that does a lot for us. And their half-court defense coming out in that zone really slowed us down, so it was tough sledding for a little bit. I think, mid-second quarter, we kind of figured it out, played inside out, got some really good looks at the rim, which allowed us to kind of set up defensively a little bit more,” said Ryan.
The two sides battled to an even third quarter, both scoring 10 points each and trading the lead a few times, but Mitchell’s ability to score inside against the zone was the largest difference on display from the first half, with the Bluejackets scoring four two-point baskets in the quarter, twice as many as the mere two they’d been able to get to fall in the entire first half.
Entering the fourth quarter facing a three-point deficit, Mitchell’s offense needed a spark and they found it in senior Dawson Irwin.
Irwin began the quarter drilling a three to tie up the game. On the following two possessions, he’d nail two more threes back-to-back to give the Bluejackets a six-point lead, before Franklin County’s Eli Butt hit a three of his own. On the next possession, Irwin dribbled into a mid-range pull-up that he sank, pushing Mitchell’s advantage back up to five.
Within the span of two and a half minutes, Irwin had rattled off 11 straight points on four straight makes to give Mitchell the lead that they’d go on to hold for the rest of the game, sealing their tournament victory.
After a tough start to the year for Irwin, who began the season as one of the team’s starters, Ryan was happy to see him find success late in a big game.
“Really proud of Dawson Irwin. It’s a tough thing, especially as a senior, you’re starting for our first five or six games and being taken out of the starting lineup. It’s really easy to hang your head and question yourself, question different things that are going on and happening and when his number was called tonight he stepped up and made big plays for us down the stretch. I’m just extremely happy for him, just to stay the course over the last couple of weeks,” said Ryan
“I felt like we were going to see a lot of zone yesterday and today and knew that would potentially give Dawson some opportunities to step up and make some shots for us and he did just that. So, always good to see the ball go in the hole as a shooter and hopefully this gives him a little bit of confidence moving forward and we can just kind of springboard him into even more than what we saw tonight.”
Across their three wins in this tournament, the Bluejackets encountered quite a bit of variance. In their first game against White River Valley, they came out of the locker room slow and lethargic, which allowed the Wolverines to take a 20-point lead in the first half, before Mitchell came storming back for the eventual win.
The second game, which was played later that night against New Washington, was a blowout in favor of the Bluejackets, with them eventually winning by 23.
In the finals, they beat a tough Franklin County team, pulling out a close game that wasn’t decided until late in the fourth quarter.
The most notable commonality in each was that Mitchell found a way to win, which was Ryan’s biggest takeaway from their performance at the event.
“We took care of business. It wasn’t pretty at times but at the end of the day, with any kind of tournament setting, it’s just survive and advance. It was pretty ugly at times, but it doesn’t matter as long as you get the win,” he said.
“We really had to fight and went through a lot of adversity starting with WRV and slow at times against New Washington. Tonight was another slow start. So, just finding different ways to win is probably what I’m most proud of. Everybody got an opportunity in this tournament and with 14, guys, that’s a lot. So, very proud of that. Just a total team effort over the last 36 hours or whatever it’s been.”
On the horizon for the Bluejackets is one of the tougher matchups on their schedule, a Jan. 5 clash against Paoli at The Hive.
The Rams (6-1) are the #12 team at the 2A level and both a Patoka Lake Athletic Conference and potential sectional opponent for Mitchell.
Ryan hopes his team is able to carry some of the momentum for this event into that game, with hopes of getting their way back into the race for the PLAC championship, where they currently sit in third place with one loss behind both Paoli and Orleans, who are unbeaten in conference play.
“When I look at yesterday and today, we just battled a ton of adversity and different guys stepping up at different times. The one question I had was, these tough, gritty, grind-it-out games, can we win those and we’re two for two yesterday and today. We’re going to have the exact same thing with Paoli next Friday night,” he said.
“Sectional opponent, conference opponent, if we want to get back in the conference race, that’s a game we have to have and they’re coming off playing really well over at the Bobcat Classic over in North Daviess. So, that’s going to be a big test. I expect it to be a similar game as it was tonight. Low scoring, possession by possession basketball and hopefully we can build off of what we’ve done yesterday and today and tweak some things to continue to improve.”
