By Noah Dalton
SEYMOUR — Mitchell High School started their 2025-26 season on Tuesday, traveling to take on Trinity Lutheran.
In the first game for a largely new Bluejackets roster, they struggled to contain the three-point shooting of the Cougars, before ultimately falling 72-47.
The two sides traded buckets early, with Mitchell managing a three-point lead at 11-8 in the first quarter. Trinity Lutheran made a run to close the half, scoring 11 unanswered on their way to a 24-16 advantage at the break.
The Cougars caught fire from deep in the third, draining seven threes, including three a piece from Hudson Lang and Reed Melancamp, to help them take a commanding 53-31 lead by the end of the period.
“They got us into rotation too many times, and we didn’t close out hard enough to run them off the line. They got confidence, and once you get confidence, the basket turns into an ocean, and man, did it turn into an ocean for them.They just threw it up there and it was going in,” Mitchell head coach Clint Roesler said about the Cougars’ hot third quarter.
Trinity Lutheran was able to remain out in front to close things out, out scoring the Bluejackets by a slim-margin of 19-16 in the fourth with their third-quarter shooting doing much of the heavy lifting on their way to the win.
Lang led all scorers on the night with 33 points. Mellencamp was the only other Cougar in double figures with 14 points
Gavin Robinson led Mitchell in scoring with 15 points. Parker Felton added eight points behind him.
With the exception of a few players, Tuesday was the first time much of Mitchell’s roster had seen competitive varsity action, with many of last season’s key figures having graduated.
One of the key exceptions to that for the Bluejackets is Robinson, a senior who is on pace to pass the 1,000 point mark for the team this season, something just a handful of other players have done in school history.
Robinson will be a focal point for the team offensively, but Roesler is looking to some of the less experienced members of the squad to help shoulder the load.
“We’ve got to be a team by committee this year to help out. Everyone is circling Gavin Robinson, that doesn’t mean we need Gavin Robinson to shoot 30 times a game, but if everybody’s going to stare at him, that’s going to create opportunities for us,” he said.
Following this game, the team will take a bit of a break for Thanksgiving before returning the following week to take on Pakota Lake Athletic Conference foe Crawford County on Friday, Dec. 5.
The break will serve as valuable rest for some members of the team who are recently finished with the football season. It will also allow them time to review film from this loss, as they work to improve from their season opener.
“I still would love to get a couple of our football guys some rest. Blake [King] and Kaden [Mullis] took a load in football this year and took a lot of hits and I don’t think they’re 100% yet. So, a few more days of rest for them is huge,” he said.
“We’ll have some film time.I told those guys, film for you guys is so important because we’re learning on the fly here. We threw you to the Wolves and when you graduate six guys and you lose another to transfer, yeah, you’ve got a whole new crew in.”
