John Raffel
Sports Scene
Shelby Mitchell made the most of his opportunities as Shepherd’s quarterback in this, his senior season.
In a loss to Alma recently, he threw for 22 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 137 yards.
“We’re having a great season, but we’ve had a few plays we’ve given up,” he said. “There’s a few big plays we’ve given up. If we would have stopped those, we would have probably won. We’ve been playing great teams. Teams like Alma and Ovid-Elsie are highly-ranked teams in the state. We’ve been playing great competition.”
Mitchell is in his first year as starting quarterback for the varsity. He had played some on the freshman and junior varsity levels.
Mitchell considers himself a running quarterback.
“If I’m running, I can actually throw better,” he said. “I’m not much of a pocket passer. But if I’m running I can throw pretty well. I’m pretty quick. I see the field well. I’m not much for breaking tackles, but I can do it when I need to.”
Mitchell worked on distributing the ball better as the season progressed.
Shepherd’s 1-6 start and the score of the games “haven’t been reflective of how we’ve been playing,” Mitchell said. “We have those few slight breakdowns that give them a momentum switch.”
Mitchell also plays basketball and hockey and he runs track. This spring, he’s looking to play baseball as well.
He played hockey and basketball at the same time last year. He’s been doing both for six years. He’s played every position in basketball except point guard and is a defenseman in hockey. Shepherd doesn’t have a hockey team, so Mitchell plays in the Mount Pleasant community league with players ages 15 to 18.