By Noah Dalton
MITCHELL — After a tough loss to start their season last week against Edgewood, Mitchell High School looked to bounce back in their first Patoka Lake Athletic Conference game of the season against Springs Valley on Friday.
Despite a strong start to the night from the Bluejackets, the Blackhawks, the No. 5 ranked team in Indiana’s 1A division, rolled to a dominant 70-6 victory.
Things couldn’t have began better for Mitchell, who scored on the opening kickoff thanks to an 80-yard return touchdown from Kelan Endris.
They carried that momentum into the first defensive possession as well, forcing a long drive out of Springs Valley that ate up around eight minutes or so of clock, but eventually resulted in a touchdown carry from Noah Alstott that evened up the score.
From that point on, it was all Blackhawks.
Touchdown after touchdown led the Blackhawks to a 54-6 lead at halftime, which tirggered a running clock for the second half and creating a hole that the Bluejackets were unable to dig themselves out of.
Despite a lopsided final score, Mitchell head coach Zach See felt the team’s performance was a step up from the previous week, as the Bluejackets managed to find the end zone and hang around with one of the state’s top teams early on.
“I told them at halftime, it got away from us in the second quarter. The score’s worse this week than it was at halftime last week. And I said, I was kind of frustrated, almost embarrassed last week, because I knew we were better than what we played,” See said of his talk with the team at the halftime break.
“I told them, you guys proved to me that you have fight inside of you and you hung with the number five team in the state for a quarter, it was 14-6, you were down eight. So, that tells me that we’ve got it, but we gotta be more consistent.”
Many of those touchdowns, six to be specific, were scored on Springs Valley carries, with the run game being their weapon of choice throughout.
Short drives from the Bluejackets and quick three-and-outs kept the team’s defense on the field for much of the game. That combined, with nine players from last week’s lineup, kept many of the same players on the field, wearing them down over time and opening things up for the Blackhawks’ rushing attack.
“They wore us down,” said See. I told the team at halftime, they’ve the same 11 guys playing offense and defense. They’re doing the same thing. I told them it’s all upstairs, it’s all mental at that point. I get it, you’re tired but you’ve gotta pull from within and do what it takes to get the job done.”
Mitchell will have a week before their next outing, another PLAC contest against West Washington.
See plans to watch film with the team, looking to build on the team’s early success against Springs Valley, while also learning from later mistakes that led to the snowball that was this Blackhawks’ victory.
“We’ll continue to go through our film, and we’ll pick apart the bad things, and we’ll pick apart the good things, and how we can make them even better,” he said.
Last year’s matchup against the Senators was one that the Bluejackets ultimately lost 35-6 after a back-and-forth first half that concluded with Mitchell trailing by just two points, 8-6.
This time around, See will be looking for a different result, and will be looking to limit turnovers and other costly errors that have plauged them so far this season to do that.
“It’s gonna be really focusing on that mental side of it, and just overcoming the fatigue. And last year, we didn’t take care of the ball very well down there,” he said.
“I feel like if we take care of the ball, and we’re consistent in what we do offensively and defensively, I feel like we’ll be in okay shape come the fourth quarter and have a chance to win a ball game.”
