By Noah Dalton
MITCHELL — History was made on Thursday night when Mitchell High School senior Gavin Robinson surpassed 1,000 career points in the Bluejackets’ game against Edinburgh, making him just the sixth player in the history of the program to reach that milestone.
Robinson has been a member of the roster each of his four years in high school, emerging as a key piece for the team over the past few seasons.
This season has been Robinson’s best, having already scored 326 total points with seven regular season games left, already coming close to his previous career-best mark from last season of 470 points.
After Thursday’s game, Robinson sets 349 points shy of the school’s all-time scoring record, when is held by Larry Ramey, class of 1956, who scored 1365 career points.
“Really proud of Gavin. He’s a special basketball player and he’s meant a lot to this program, even before I’ve been here. But I think he’s really blossomed the last couple of years playing under the new program and he’s got to show a little bit of his skill set that maybe people didn’t understand that he had and he’s grown from it,” said Mitchell head coach Clint Roesler.
“He’s a phenomenal basketball player, a phenomenal kid. Whatever adventure he goes off on in life, he’s going to be amazing. He’s a hard worker. He’s a great kid to be around.”
Robinson’s big night was spoiled by Edinburgh and senior guard Bailey Totten, who drained a three-pointer with 0.8 seconds left to take the lead for the Lancers and ultimately win them the game, 57-55.
Totten’s game-winner extinguished a hot second-half comeback from the Bluejackets, who trailed by 14 points at the halftime break before storming back to take the lead with under a minute left in the fourth.
Edinburgh established their lead in the second quarter behind a standout performance from Totten, who scored 13 of the team’s 19 points in the period.
“We took a ton of shots around the rim in the first quarter and I don’t think any of them felt like they went in. I don’t know if it was that we hadn’t played since the 23rd and that attributed to a little bit of it or what it was, but we didn’t get off to a good start at all,” Roesler said of his team’s slow start.
“We kind of got out of rhythm a little bit. Offensively, our cuts were slow, they were pressuring the ball and we couldn’t handle the pressure to run any of our sets against the 2-3 that we like to go to,” he added.
Mitchell worked to slow him down in the second half and found success, holding him to a scoreless third quarter and just three points in the fourth before his final three for the win.
With his scoring halted, the Bluejackets began their comeback, slowly chipping away at the double-digit lead until midway through the fourth, when they found themselves trailing by one point, 48-47.
The two sides traded buckets back and forth until Robinson blocked a shot on an Edinburgh fastbreak before draining a three on the other end with 35 seconds left, his second of the fourth quarter, for Mitchell to take their first lead since the first quarter, 55-54.
After two misses Bluejacket free-throws, the Lancers got the ball back with six seconds left, inbounded it to Totten, who dribbled up the court into a contested fallaway three-pointer that found the bottom of the net for the win.
Despite outshooting Ebinbirgh 33-21, Mitchell’s struggles early on proved too much to overcome.
“Credit to our guys in the second half for really fighting back.I do appreciate the no quit attitude that we have.However, we can’t keep digging ourselves a hole,” Roesler said.
In addition to their fourth quarter heroics, Robinson and Totten were the two highest scorers in the game.
Robinson had a team-high 17 points, 10 of which he scored in the fourth quarter. Also in double-figures for Mitchell was Caedon Goldsberry, who scored 12 on 4/7 shooting from beyond the arc, and Gavin Martin, who scored 11.
Totten led all scorers on the night with 22 points. Max Dodson was the only other double-digit scorer for the Lancers with 15 points.
This loss marks the seventh in the last eight outings for the Bluejackets, making it their toughest stretch of either season under Roesler thus far.
Though they haven’t found themselves in the win column as much as he’d like during this stretch, Roesler said the team has played some of their best basketball in these games.
Part of the issue, according to him, has been the team’s inability to sustain that level of play for an entire game.
“Consistency is our Achilles heel. We have got to be able to keep it together, no matter what defense is thrown at us or anything. We’ve got to be able to be more consistent with turnovers, more consistent offensively, defensively. It’s got to be better,” he said.
“Our good basketball that we play is some of our best right now, but we just keep having those lulls in the game where we play some of our worst basketball.We’ve got to figure that out.”
