Rocky juniors are not satisfied with undefeated season, they want more

“It’s cool to have an undefeated season, but now we want to win the championship,” Rocky Grove Junior High basketball coach Jarrad Griffin said moments after the regular season finale in Titusville.
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His junior Orioles went 18-0 this season, including a 55-51 triple overtime win against Eisenhower.
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They move on to the off-season to play Conneaut Lake in the first round of a four-team conference play-off among the top teams.

That game is slated for 4 p.m. Monday at Cochranton High School.

​The winner of that game will take on the winner of the Cochranton versus Warren game. The championship game is slated for Tuesday.
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Griffin said his team has played and beaten everybody in the playoffs, but noted, they were all close wins.

The team is mostly eighth graders with just three seventh graders. The leader of the team in all categories is eighth-grader Preston Keith. “Preston is just bigger, faster, stronger, quicker. All of it,” Griffin said, not just about his team but those they play.
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Griffin has been impressed with his team’s chemistry throughout the season.
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“These kids have been playing together for a long time and they have played a lot of basketball. They just want to be in the gym,” he said. “They make our job easy. When we show up to practice, we have kids that want to be there and they want to work hard. And they all have each others back, if we have one (kid) having an off-night or one who is down, we have an entire group of nine or ten kids there to pick them back up.”

Griffin is flanked by coaches Koby Winslow and Josh Keith.
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Beside Preston Keith, the undefeated players who all have key roles are Liam Grigsby, Ryder Green, Max Griffin, Xavier Gordon, Dreyden Hughes, Carter Manning, Noah Baldwin, Brody Anderson, Tariq Ali, Raymond Mutzig,
Griffin said the team averages less than 10 turnovers and over 20 rebounds a game. They are also profit stealers with more 12 each game.
They have outscored their opponents by 20 points on average.
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“They’re a very patient team. We’ve had some games when we’ve been down and they just keep their cool and they slowly chip away and fight back. It takes a lot to rattle these kids,” Griffin said. “This whole group is just big, athletic, strong. They are a good group of kids.”
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As Griffin said, they’re not done yet and a social media post welcomed community members to come out and support them at 4 p.m. Monday at Cochranton High School.