Kernel girls show strong intensity in first game

BRANDON — Wes Morgan didn’t have any goals for the Mitchell girls’ basketball team that were really measurable on paper for Tuesday’s season-opening game.

The Kernels defeated Brandon Valley 65-30, but Morgan told the team in Monday’s practice that he wanted to see it do three things — have good transitions, play up to its capabilities in an up-tempo style and get stronger in conditioning.

Overall, Morgan thought his team achieved most of its goals.

“I was real happy with how we kept up our intensity,” Morgan said. “Our conditioning isn’t there yet. But we’re going to get that in practice.”

Mitchell’s five starters sat the bench for most of the fourth quarter with the lopsided score.

“If I don’t keep them in the game, I can’t get them in game shape,” he said.

Morgan said it is too early in the season to set more specific goals, such as holding a team a under certain amount of points.

And even though the Kernels returned four of five starters from a season ago, Morgan knows this year’s team will play a little differently than last year’s title team. He’s also waiting to see how his team gels together and plays on game day.

“We want to figure out how to keep a team on the floor that’s not only going to be all offense or all defense, or vice-versa,” Morgan said.

The Lynx have three returning starters and their other two starters were key bench contributors from a year ago.

But Mitchell’s defense held Allison Koehn to 11 points Tuesday. Koehn, who received all-state votes last season but did not make the first or second team, scored 16 and 22 points, respectively, in Brandon Valley’s two matchups against Mitchell last season. The Lynx’s other two returning starters, Brynn Rist and Lexi Hoover, combined for nine points.

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