By Noah Dalton
MITCHELL – After getting back on track the previous night with a victory over North Knox, Mitchell High School were met with quite an obstacle on Saturday night in the form of Brownstown-Central.
The defending 2A state champion Braves entered the matchup having won 24 straight games in a streak that has spanned nearly a full calendar year.
Since 2000, Brownstown has controlled their series of matchups against the Bluejackets, with a record of 18-3 in their meetings during that span, including a pair of near 40-point blowouts in recent years.
Though the Braves survived Saturday’s game to earn another win in the matchup, 67-60, this time things were a bit different.
The key word there was survived.
Instead of a dominant outing, the two sides were close throughout, exchanging leads at different points, most notably in the final couple minutes of play.
With just under three minutes left in the fourth quarter, Mitchell’s Nate Robertson scored on an attempt near the basket to put the Bluejackets ahead with a one-point lead, their first advantage on the score board since the second quarter.
Prior to that point, it had been a game of runs from both sides, with Brownstown finding a hot streak near the end of the first to take a 18-13 lead after one.
Mitchell bounced back, grabbing the lead for themselves in the second thanks to a three from senior guard Austin Mosier.
Shortly after, the Braves went on another run, scoring eight unanswered to jump back into the driver’s seat, though the Bluejackets managed to trim the lead back down to three before the halftime buzzer.
After a largely-even third, Brownstown found another head of steam in the fourth, scoring six straight before the Bluejackets battled back to regain the lead.
It was ultimately shortlived though, as Mitchell found themselves in the bonus, putting Braves’ senior Chase Coomer to the line after a foul, where he grabbed the lead back after making both attempts, 59-58.
The Bluejackets struggled to find offense down the stretch, with the final two points coming by way of a perfect trip to the line of their own from Gavin Robinson.
All the while, Brownstown held firm, making all eight of their free throw attempts brought on from Mitchell’s clock-stopping fouling efforts.
“They went into a zone. I’m assuming they saw our film from last weekend at Salem and saw we struggled with the zone. We got some good looks out of it that we just missed,” said Bluejackets’ head coach Clint Roesler.
“They have that pedigree about them. Even if they graduated some guys, they’ve been there. They know how to win big games, and that probably had a lot to do with with the outcome tonight,” he added about his opponent.
Roesler said it was important coming into this matchup that Mitchell looked to be on the attack and did not let Brownstown’s reputation intimate them out of playing their usual game, something he felt his team did a great job of.
“We watched film earlier today, and we just talked about making sure that we were the hunters and not the hunted, because we don’t want to go in and have a mentality of like we’re already on defense before we even start the basketball game,” he said.
“We looked at all the ways that we could attack them in the style of defense that they played, and I thought we executed that.”
It also helped the Bluejackets to have their full team available for the game, something that hasn’t been the cause since midway through their matchup with Eastern Greene a few weeks ago.
On Friday, the team regained Roesler, who had served a two-game suspension following an ejection against the Thunderbirds. They were missing Robertson in that game, who was serving a one-game suspension following an ejection of his own in the previous matchup against Salem.
“I told everyone, this is a real welcome home for everybody. We all finally got the gang back together and we showed out tonight. The top six or seven guys that really get a lot of varsity run, they were ready for tonight,” said Roesler.
“I give all the credit to them for staying ready through adversity, through suspensions, through all the silly mistakes that we’ve made as a team so far, to come out and play like we did tonight.”
After suffering their first two losses of the season last week, Roesler hopes Saturday night can be a bit of a turning point in their season, with their level of play against one of the tougher matchups on their schedule becoming the standard for the rest of the year.
“We just talked in the locker room about making sure that this is the standard that we show in practice, in games. This is our standard, and there’s no turning back. Last weekend is a big red stain on our year, but it’s got to stay in the past, and we’ve got to continue to move forward,” he said.
