By Noah Dalton
MITCHELL – After picking up their first win of the season the previous night against Crawford County, Mitchell High School took the court once again looking to keep their momentum going against Eastern Greene.
After the game had stayed largely even through two quarters, a dominant third quarter run from the Thunderbirds put them firmly in the driver’s seat, on their way to beating the Bluejackets 64-53.
Both sides traded baskets, exchanging the lead back and forth throughout the first half, with Eastern Greene entering the locker room with just a one-point advantage.
By the end of the third, they found themselves up by 17, largely thanks to an accurate stretch of three-point shooting. The Thunderbirds drained five threes, shooting 50% from deep in the period, including three straight from Aydan Deckard.
Comparatively, Mitchell shot just 25% in the quarter, scoring just eight points during a cold stretch against a surge from Eastern Greene.
Bluejackets head coach Clint Roesler attributed their slow quarter in part to the team having trouble playing against set defenses, rather than being able to push the pace in transition in the early goings of this season.
“Anytime you’re making shots and you’re able to run back and set your defense, and then we’ve gotta play against a set defense instead. It’s no secret we kind of struggle with that right now, and working through our offense. It looks clunky at times,” he said.
“So when we’re not forcing misses or forcing turnovers, we can’t play in transition, which is our bread and butter right now.”
The Bluejackets got back on track to begin the fourth, starting the quarter on a 7-0 run, before eventually reducing the lead down to nine points with three minutes left to play, but the Thunderbirds managed to fend off their comeback attempt to secure the win.
Eastern Greene’s offense was led by their backcourt, a pair of standout guards Coby Sykes and Kyan Hudson. Sykes scored 19 points on the night, the highest total for the Thunderbirds, with Hudson adding 10. Deckard scored 12 points, all on made three-pointers in the second half, with three in the third and another in the fourth.
According to Roesler, part of the team’s plan was to work to take away scoring opportunities from Sykes and Hudson, instead forcing others on the team to knock down shots. Unfortunately for Mitchell, Deckard’s big second half, as well as contributions from others on the team helped Eastern Greene thwart that plan.
I think we had a good game plan coming in.Everybody knows how good Sykes is and Hudson is very good. So, we wanted to force anybody else to have to beat us,: he explained. “Unfortunately, I accounted for maybe a couple of guys hitting a couple of threes. I didn’t account for [Deckard] to go off for four threes and three other guys that hit a three for seven different threes. That was a crushing blow at the end of it.”
Mitchell’s Gavin Robinson was the leading scorer for the evening with 29 points. Also scoring in double figures for them was Kaden Mullis, who added 12.
As the Bluejackets prepare for two matchups at The Hive next week, one against Patoka Lake Athletic Conference opponent Springs Valley on Friday and the other against Salem the following night, Roesler said the team will use the time in between to study film to look to improve upon their half court offense, where they struggled tonight particularly during their slow third quarter. The team will also look to highlight some of their better defensive moments from the first few games of this season, an area he feels they’ve shined in.
‘I think there’s some small tweaks defensively and I wanna highlight some things that we’re doing well as well defensively. Because that’s what we gotta hang our hat on this year,” he said.
”We haven’t gotten the chance to play too much in the half court yet,” he continued. “Tonight was our first real look at consistent half court offense and that’s gonna be valuable film for us to review and look at because we haven’t had a real opportunity to sit back and watch ourselves instead of just playing in practice.”
