MINNEAPOLIS -- The Mitchell High School basketball team traveled 300 miles to play what was technically a home game Friday, but the Kernel players said it was well worth the trip.
The Kernels took on Brandon Valley at the Target Center in Minneapolis in a game that, despite a 51-38 loss to the Lynx, will likely remained lodged in the minds of the Kernel players forever.
"It was awesome," said Kernels junior forward Jake Schmidt, who scored 12 points in the loss. "It was a new experience. It was pretty fun."
It probably would have been more fun for those in the Kernels' camp if the team had come out with a win, but senior guard Brett Young said the loss only put a small damper on the memories the team would take away from the game.
"It's still an experience, and it's still a good time," Young said. "You obviously want to win every game, but it's still an experience out here."
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The Kernels, who left Mitchell early Friday morning, didn't exactly get a true NBA experience. They didn't have access to any locker rooms, and changed into and out of their warm-ups in the tunnel at the north end of the arena. But it was still the same floor that many of the NBA greats have played on, and that fact wasn't lost on the Kernel players.
"It's exciting to be on the floor out here where all these major players have played," Young said. "It was quite the experience. It was a great time."
Pre-game warm-ups and player introductions might have been one of the best memories for the players involved, since they were truly able to soak in the atmosphere and enjoy the experience. For some of the players, that meant taking a crack at a couple of NBA-distance 3-pointers.
"The NBA 3-point line is actually a lot farther away than you would think it would be," said Mitchell junior point guard Sam Fosness. "I took a few and none of them came close. I couldn't imagine shooting that normally."
Almost all the Kernels cited the size of the building as one of the most exciting parts of the game, and also one of the biggest adjustments. Once the game started, the Kernels said they tried to put all that out of their minds and focus on the task at hand, which was an Eastern South Dakota Conference basketball game. According to Fosness, that wasn't always easy to do.
"I tried to kind of put that out of my mind, but to play in this is building is kind of tough," Fosness said. "You do think about it a little bit, but you try to keep it out of your mind."
Added Schmidt: "Once you get the nerves out, it's just another game.
