By Noah Dalton
MITCHELL — Following perhaps the team’s best performance of the year in the week prior, where they scored a season-high 22 points, Mitchell High School looked to carry that momentum into Friday night’s matchup against North Central Farmersburg.
After a slow start for the Bluejackets, things went from bad to worse, with the Thunderbirds taking early control of the matchup with a commanding lead at halftime, on their way to a dominant 41-6 victory.
For Mitchell, who now sit at 0-6 on the year, the game felt like a bit of a step in the wrong direction, particularly after what they’d shown in last week’s 24-22 loss to Crawford County, which saw the Bluejackets nearly walking away with their first win of the season.
In part responsible for the decline in performance against North Central was a lack of focus, according to Mitchell head coach Zach See.
“I’ll be honest, we didn’t have very much focus this whole week. I think this is always a tough week, with Persimmon Festival week going on, you lose a lot of the kids’ focus,” he said.
“I harped on it last week because I knew from just experience, you lose a lot of your focus, there’s a lot of things going on. We obviously want them to be kids too, but we also have to realize that we’ve got a job on Friday.”
The Thunderbirds scored five touchdowns in the first half, propelling them to a 35-0 lead at the break and a running clock for the second half.
“We were misaligned or not in the right coverage or we didn’t hold our gap when that was our gap to hold as a defensive front,” said See. “I just didn’t feel like we had very much intensity, especially up front and backers-wise. I felt like we were kind of flat-footed.”
See said he challenged his team in the locker room at halftime to improve in those areas for the second half, in effort which he felt paid off, with the Bluejackets finding the end zone with a 55-yard touchdown pass from Joe Todd to Sven Lutchka in the third quarter and an improved defensive outing where they held North Central to just six points.
“I saw us flying around a little bit more. I saw us a little bit more focused,” said See.”I know we had a running clock, but I felt like we played a lot better in the second half. We fought a little bit more.”
Still seeking their first win, Mitchell will have quite a challenge in front of them the next they take the field on Friday, Oct. 3, that being North Daviess, currently the 10th ranked team in Indiana’s 2A division.
Against one of the tougher opponents on their schedule, the Bluejackets will need to work on staying focused and matching the intensity of the Cougars, according to See.
“I think we’re going to have to continue to stay focused. The younger kids are going to have to really focus and really buy in this week and pay attention so they can do their job and do it well, because, obviously, North Daviess is a good opponent. They’re ranked in the state and they’re going to come out and they’re going to play hard no matter what,” See said.
“We’ve got to be able to match the intensity, match the focus from the get-go and I think we’ll be all right.”
