By Noah Dalton
MITCHELL — Mitchell High School’s six-game win streak ended on Friday night, with the Bluejackets falling to Edgewood 63-61 in a tense battle.
The game came down to the final possession, with Mustangs senior Carson Huttenlocker draining a three with four seconds left in the fourth to give his team the lead and ultimately the win.
The Bluejackets had trailed for much of the game prior to the fourth, down by as many as 16 points in the first half.
The Mustangs were hot out of gate, ending the first half ahead by 12, doing so by shooting nearly 77% from the field (13/17). Conversely, Mitchell knocked down just 37% of their 27 attempts in the same timeframe.
“I thought they kind of came out and punched us in the mouth a couple of times. We didn’t really respond in the way that I wanted us to, and we talked about that at halftime. We went on some mini runs to keep it respectively close going into half, but we didn’t finish well in the first half around the rim,” said Bluejackets head coach Clint Roesler. “We talked about needing to up our intensity and needing to get a string of stops. We couldn’t let them keep scoring the way they were.”
Mitchell began to find more success in the third, forcing more misses from the Mustangs and finally seeing more of their own shots falling. They outscored Edgewood by eight points in the quarter, chopping the previously double-digit lead down to as few as two points during the period.
The Bluejackets’ offense was spearheaded in the third by Gavin Robinson, who scored 11 while shooting a perfect 5/5 and knocking down his lone attempt at the free-throw line.
Though Mitchell had begun to turn the game around in the third, it wasn’t until late in the fourth quarter that they earned their first lead in the game.
After the two sides spent much of the period trading baskets and matching each other shot-for-shot, before four quick points from Austin Mosier with 43 seconds left on the clock, capped by a steal and transition layup, put the Bluejackets ahead 61-60. The next basket was Huttenlocker’s deciding corner three that sealed the win for the Mustangs.
As they have in other close matchups throughout the season, Mitchell once again leaned on Mosier down the stretch when they needed points. He delivered 18 fourth-quarter points on his way to matching his career high of 32 points on the night. He was the only Bluejacket to score in the fourth quarter.
The only miss of his seven shots taken in the fourth came on a three as time expired that would’ve won it for Mitchell.
“Austin is committed, and as much as I can brag on him throughout the year and everything that he’s done and shown as a basketball player, he’s found another gear and it starts in practice. He has been an absolute leader in practice and pushing his teammates to do more and be better. It starts there and it translates to the basketball court,” said Roesler.
“He was willing us to victory. The last shot that he had to try to win the basketball game, you can’t get a better look from him, and from my angle, I thought for a second that he was going to hit it. But as I told our coaching staff before I went in the locker room, we’ve won a lot of these close games. We were bound to lose one of them, and I would rather it be now than in tournament time.”
With their win streak now halted, the Bluejackets will look to close the regular season out strong, with three games in the coming week, including back-to-back nights on the road Tuesday and Wednesday, taking on Shoals and Paoli, after another snow storm delayed Tuesday’s scheduled matchup against the Rams for a second time this season. They’ll close the week against Scottsburg at home for Senior Night on Friday.
Their next opponent, the Jug Rox, is one Mitchell is familiar with, having faced them in the Cement City Classic a few months earlier.
That was another close game, in which the Bluejackets were the ones to score with just seconds left on the clock to take a two-point lead and ultimately the win.
Shoals had success in that game slowing the pace and holding the ball for minutes at a time, a strategy numerous teams Mitchell has since faced have tried to use and something Roesler is ready to see again on Tuesday.
“We’re much better than what we were in the Cement City Classic, so if they want to try that, we’ve proven that we can win against that style of basketball just as much as we can win against any style of basketball,” he said.
“But we’ve got to come out and play the basketball game. We can’t just look at rankings and look at how much we’re supposed to win by, because that almost got us in trouble the first time.
So, we’ve got to come out and play each game with the same intensity and I think we’ve done that, especially down the stretch here, we’ll continue to look to do that.”
Box Score
Mitchell Stats
Points: 61 | FGM: 23/46 | FG%: 50.00% | 3PM: 5/17 | 3P%: 29.41% | FTM: 10/14 | FT%: 71.43% | Rebounds: 16 | Team Turnovers: 11
Individual Player Stats for Mitchell:
#2 Austin Mosier – Points: 32 | FGM: 10/18 | FG%: 55.56% | 3PM: 5/12 | 3P%: 41.67% | FTM: 7/9 | FT%: 77.78% | Rebounds: 1
#1 Aiden Pridemore – Points: 2 | FGM: 1/6 | FG%: 16.67% | 3PM: 0/3 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 0/2 | FT%: 0.00% | Rebounds: 2
#40 Nate Robertson – Points: 4 | FGM: 2/2 | FG%: 100.00% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 1
#22 Gavin Robinson – Points: 21 | FGM: 9/12 | FG%: 75.00% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 3/3 | FT%: 100.00% | Rebounds: 3
#12 Carl Chenault – Points: 2 | FGM: 1/4 | FG%: 25.00% | 3PM: 0/2 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 7
#4 Malakai Goodman – Points: 0 | FGM: 0/1 | FG%: 0.00% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 0
#20 Kaden Mullis – Points: 0 | FGM: 0/0 | FG%: 0% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 1
#3 Tate Woods – Points: 0 | FGM: 0/3 | FG%: 0.00% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 1
Edgewood Stats
Points: 63 | FGM: 23/37 | FG%: 62.16% | 3PM: 4/11 | 3P%: 36.36% | FTM: 11/12 | FT%: 91.67% | Rebounds: 19 | Team Turnovers: 17
Individual Player Stats for Edgewood:
#23 Caden Jones – Points: 10 | FGM: 2/5 | FG%: 40.00% | 3PM: 1/2 | 3P%: 50.00% | FTM: 3/3 | FT%: 100.00% | Rebounds: 4
#44 Kamren Ranard – Points: 23 | FGM: 10/14 | FG%: 71.43% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 3/4 | FT%: 75.00% | Rebounds: 6
#10 Carson Huttenlocker – Points: 6 | FGM: 2/2 | FG%: 100.00% | 3PM: 1/1 | 3P%: 100.00% | FTM: 1/1 | FT%: 100.00% | Rebounds: 0
#13 Will Inman – Points: 4 | FGM: 1/3 | FG%: 33.33% | 3PM: 0/2 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 2/2 | FT%: 100.00% | Rebounds: 3
#4 Owen McGovern – Points: 2 | FGM: 0/0 | FG%: 0% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 2/2 | FT%: 100.00% | Rebounds: 1
#24 Carl Norris – Points: 2 | FGM: 1/3 | FG%: 33.33% | 3PM: 0/2 | 3P%: 0.00% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 4
#2 AJ Norris – Points: 2 | FGM: 1/2 | FG%: 50.00% | 3PM: 0/0 | 3P%: 0% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 1
#22 Reece Roberts – Points: 14 | FGM: 6/8 | FG%: 75.00% | 3PM: 2/4 | 3P%: 50.00% | FTM: 0/0 | FT%: 0% | Rebounds: 0
