By Noah Dalton
CAMPBELLSBURG — Mitchell High School’s rough start to this season continued on Friday, as the Bluejackets were beaten 73-6 by Patoka Lake Athletic Conference foe West Washington.
The Senators dominated the early stages of the game, taking a 59-0 lead by halftime, scoring on seven of their first eight possessions.
Bluejackets’ head coach Bobby Owens noted completing tackles as a key issue for his team as West Washington took control of the game.
“We’re just arm tackling right now,” he said. “Today, we’re just leaving a gap, not taking the air out of the situation, and then we’re just sticking out an arm and you can’t do that with good backs. And they’ve got some hard runners.”
Despite facing a running clock in the second half, Mitchell showed some life after the break. They put together their only scoring drive of the night in the fourth quarter, capped off by a 33-yard touchdown completion from Sven Lutchka to Kelan Endris.
Owens praised Lutchka and Endris, as well as freshman Tajay Alexander and junior Brett Mullis as key contributors for the team, playing a significant number of snaps on both sides of the ball as the team entered the game shorthanded due to injuries.
Though the effort was there, Owens said the team’s struggles to execute consistently ultimately led them towards the loss.
“It takes 11 on the field doing their jobs at the same time every play, and I think that probably happened 10 times out of 150 plays today,” said Owens.
“I got on the team hard at halftime and after the game because if we don’t all execute and we’re looking to our left and our right, just trying to point out somebody else not executing while we’re not doing our jobs, then there’s issues,” he continued.
The Bluejackets will play their third consecutive game on the road next Friday, traveling to Eastern Greene for a battle against the Thunderbirds.
Owens said the team will spend the week focusing on executing their game plan on both offense and defense, as well as competing tackles, which he previously noted as the team’s two biggest struggles against West Washington.
“Execution will be our big thing and tackling is our number two because execution is on both sides of the ball,” he said.
“We’ve got to make sure that we’re taking the right step in the right direction up front, in the backfield, all around, but tackling is my number two this week. We will be spending a little bit of extra time in tackling drills throughout the week.”
