By Noah Dalton
MITCHELL — Monday marked the beginning of the 2025 Cement City Classic, the third annual tournament hosted at The Hive.
Mitchell High School were the champions of the event for the past two seasons, and entered the tournament looking to defend their crown.
The Bluejackets played two games in pool play to start the event that would ultimately determine the time and opponent for the final game on Tuesday.
Mitchell began the afternoon facing off against Eastern (Pekin), beating them 72-55. They concluded the evening with a game against North Harrison, who beat them 62-59 in a tense battle.
With a record of 1-1 in pool play, the Bluejackets will face Patoka Lake Athletic Conference opponent West Washington on Tuesday, with tip-off set for 4:45 p.m.
For the first time ever, the event will have a non-hometown champion, with the finals contested between North Harrison and 1A No. 8 ranked Loogootee to close the night.
Bluejackets pull away in fourth quarter to beat Eastern 72-55
Mitchell found themselves down early against the Musketeers, with Eastern leading at the end of a back-and-forth first quarter 18-17. The two sides were even multiple times throughout, with the Musketeers lead coming way of a shot as time expired to end the period.
Eastern went up by four in the second quarter before a 14-0 run from the Bluejackets put them back on top with a strong 35-28 lead at the half.
The Musketeers got hot in the third and made one last push, narrowing the lead down to just two points, 37-35, before Mitchell extinguished the flame and went on another run of their own.
They finished the quarter up by nine, 53-44, before pulling away in the fourth on their way to a convincing win.
“I thought we scored the basketball really well. I thought we were very efficient throughout the whole game,” said Mitchell head coach Clint Roesler. “I wish we could have gotten out to a better start in that game. I think that would have helped us, but we were just a little bit sluggish. I don’t know if it was the early start or whatever it is, but we pulled it together.”
The Bluejackets had four players score in double figures: Gavin Robinson scored 26 points, Jayden Zapeda and Garrett Floerke each had 11 points and Kaden Mullis scored 10 points.
North Harrison battle back late to beat Bluejackets 62-59
Similarly, Mitchell trailed behind North Harrison at the end of the first quarter, this time by a margin of 11-7.
The Bluejackets went on a run in the second quarter, scoring 12 straight to take an eight point lead, 24-16.
The Cougars finally broke that run, by way of a made free-throw from Cory Burson with 1:05 left in the frame, kicking off what would become a 7-0 run from North Harrison to close the second quarter in the final minute to close the gap to just one point, 24-23.
Mitchell pushed themselves ahead further in the third, going up by 14 points midway through the period, 45-31, following a hot stretch from Caedon Goldsberry, who knocked down three triples in the period.
Once again, by the end of the quarter, the Cougars had stormed back to make it a one possession game at 47-45, though the Bluejackets maintained their lead throughout.
Mitchell started the fourth knocking down back-to-back threes, one from Zapeda and one from Robinson, but again North Harrison would not go away, battling back to eventually take the lead, 54-53, with just over four minutes remaining in the game.
That lead change was the final one of the night, with the Cougars holding on for the victory 62-57 following some costly turnovers and other mistakes from the Bluejackets down the stretch, as they attempted to come back.
“As we grow and progress through the season, we want to continue to get better and we probably played 20 minutes of our best basketball this season. Unfortunately, we followed it up with about eight minutes of our worst basketball. And a young team struggles to understand how to win and what it’s going to take down the stretch and that reared its ugly head again tonight,” said Roesler.
“We’ve got to do a better job of being able to close out a game, take care of the ball, and not change and alter anything that we’re doing based on what point in the game we’re in and we’re struggling with that right now,” he continued
Though the team would have preferred to be fighting to hold onto to the Cement City Classic tomorrow against Loogootee, Roesler said the team will still need to come out and fight hard for third place, in their first meeting against the Senators this season.
“We told the guys we’ve got a hard reset tomorrow. We can be upset about the game now, but we got a hard reset because we’ve got a tough game tomorrow and I would like to get third place. I don’t want to settle for fourth,” said Roesler. “West Washington’s a quality team. We’ll see them again later in the season and we’re going to have to get our minds right and be ready for another battle.”
