The objective has been clear since Day One. Difficult, but clear.
“We came together before the start of the season and everyone was on the same page with what we wanted to do,” said Grafton boys basketball coach Jeremy Jordan, whose opening message to his team at the start of the current season went something like: “Let’s run the table in the Bay Rivers District.”
Not an unrealistic task. New Kent’s boys did it in 2009-10 before eventually losing in the Group AA final, although the Trojans were the first Bay Rivers team to pull off a perfect 18-0 district mark in over a decade.
But for a team that lost two key figures in versatile scoring guard Kevin Barnes, now hooping for Virginia Wesleyan, and Blake Ream, a freshman pitcher for Longwood University’s baseball team, from last year’s group that went 17-1 in the BRD before losing an overtime heartbreaker in the Group AA championship game, the goal probably seemed farfetched to anyone outside the Clippers’ locker room.
“To be honest, we expected to run through the district undefeated,” senior forward Jesse Santiago said after Grafton conquered that exact task Wednesday night by capping off the regular season with a 64-54 road win at York. “Our number one goal is a state championship. Now we start the second part of our season.”
It isn’t arrogance the Clippers speak with, either. They backed it up with their play on the court all season long, outscoring district opponents by over 200 points en route to an unblemished 18-0 final district record. Perhaps the most impressive statistic is that 15 of Grafton’s 18 victories against Bay Rivers schools were won by at least 10 points or more.
That doesn’t mean the Clippers were never tested, though.
It took clutch performances from the likes of senior star Elijah Moore, who is averaging right around a 20-point 10-rebound double-double, and point guard Tyler McMillan, the Clippers’ go-to free-throw shooter late in games, to finish off three-point wins on the road against Warhill (66-63) back in early December and against Bruton (41-38) merely three weeks ago. Junior Joey Miller has also come up huge on several occasions, including last Friday when he knocked down 2-2 from the charity stripe with the Clippers trailing host Tabb by one, 51-50, with 1.5 seconds left in the game to keep the perfect season intact.
Wednesday’s season finale against Route 17 rival York was no cake walk, either.
York played a spirited game in front of its home crowd on Senior Night, going toe-to-toe with the heavily favored Clippers, who won the two side’s first meeting of the season 73-50. The Falcons, who were led fittingly by seniors Brandon Harvell (15 points) and Johnny Cruz (12 points), trailed 50-49 after three quarters before a depleting 12-1 run by Grafton to open the final period sucked the last bit of life out of York.
“We expected it to be a tough ride,” Jordan said. “But the kids believed in each other, and in the goal.
“We’re a goal-oriented team because as a coach, that’s how I feel is the best way to improve. We had one blemish on our record last year, so the goal this season was to improve, and the only way to do that was to run the table.
“I’m proud of the guys. I told them they had a chance to leave a little bit of a lasting legacy as a just one of a few teams to [go undefeated], and that’s what they did.”
Added McMillan, “No one’s done it in a few years, and we came so close last year that once coach [Jordan] told us he thought we could do it, we believed it.”
Moore, the hands-down favorite to win district Player of the Year this season, echoes the same confidence of his teammates saying the ultimate goal is a state championship, but acknowledges that the toughest part in the Clippers’ quest still lies ahead.
“We’ve been relying more on defense since two of our top scorers [from last year] are gone,” Moore said. “We’re going to have to fight harder this time.”
Said Jordan, “It’s like we’ve been telling the guys all year: this was part one of our season. We came out of it maybe a little better than expected, but now our second season begins.”
The Clippers will be the No. 1 seed in next week’s Bay Rivers District tournament, which tips off Monday at the home of the higher seeded teams.
Check back over the weekend following Friday’s makeup games for the final district standings and opening-round pairings.
