By Noah Dalton
SALEM — Mitchell High School were eliminated from the Indiana 2A State Championship tournament on Friday, falling to Paoli 77-36 in the second round of sectional play.
The Rams, who entered the game as the top ranked team in Indiana’s 2A division with a perfect 24-0 record, jumped out to an early lead and held control of the game throughout.
Paoli finished the first quarter up double-digits, with a 20-8 lead, after scoring the first six points of the night. By halftime, their lead had ballooned to 35 points to initiate a running clock for the remainder of the game.
The Bluejackets’ 28 total turnovers, 21 of which came in the first half, plagued them throughout the night. The Rams scored 36 points off turnovers in the first half, accounting for just under 70% of their total points scored in the first two periods.
Mitchell head coach Clint Roesler said his team struggled against early full-court pressure from Paoli, which led to many of those turnovers.
“We struggled offensively. I knew that was probably going to be the toughest portion of it.
We wanted to get out against their press and try to get some buckets off of that. We didn’t execute very well,” said Roesler.
“Our goal was to limit them. They’re 25-0 now for a reason. Once they get the lead that they do, the game plan is out the window. Now you’re throwing Hail Marys. Unfortunately, every Hail Mary ended worse than the one before. We got in too big of a hole. Against a team like this, you’re not climbing out.”
Rams’ senior Kirkland Hughes was the top scorer for the night with 19 points. Three other Paoli players scored in double-figures: Chad Sullivan (12 points), Justin Thorton (12 points) and Dane Padgett (10 points).
Jayden Zapeda led the way for the Bluejackets with 8 points. Also scoring for Mitchell were Gavin Robinson (7 points), Caedon Goldsberry (6 points), Blake King (6 points), Parker Felton (4 points), Gavin Martin (3 points) and Kaden Mullis (2 points).
The loss ends the Bluejackets’ season with an overall record of 8-17.
It was an up and down season for a young Mitchell team that featured many close losses amidst a difficult stretch of games near the end of the season.
Reflecting on the year, Roesler said he was impressed with the toughness displayed by his team in the face of adversity.
“We showed a lot of grit this year, in a lot of different ways,” he said. “We had a lot of fight, even tonight. When we were going into halftime, we were talking about, right now it’s all about pride. I thought our guys came out, and they continued to battle. Nobody just laid down. That speaks a lot to their character. Especially our seniors, who are going to move on, and do bigger, better things in basketball.”
Despite some struggles, this season marks the second consecutive for the Bluejackets with a postseason victory, the first time the program has accomplished that since the 2003-04 season.
Roesler hopes the experience of this season proves valuable moving forward for his group, many of which will be returning next season as the team only had four seniors on the varsity roster for this year.
“From a standpoint of returning players, going into this season, we had one guy, maybe one and a half, if you count the last eight games of Kaden Mullis, that had any sort of deep varsity experience. We had one guy. We talked about it in the locker room a little bit afterwards. Our seniors came in basically cold from Varsity. Everybody else did too. Being able to return three starters and being able to get kids like Kelan Endris some vital minutes and some meaningful minutes in the varsity games, it’s going to be crucial for us,” he said.
“I feel like we’re building the program in the way that I want to build it and the way we want to build it as a team. It’s just going to take time,” he continued.
Individual skill development will be key during the offseason, according to Roesler, specifically pointing to shooting as an area where the team will need to see improvement next year.
“I think everybody improved this year, and I think that’s the mark of the right direction. But shooting is the number one skill in basketball. If you can’t put the ball in the hole, you can’t win,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of skill development to work on, but shooting is top priority. We’ve got to develop shooters in our program.”
