Rockets enjoy section title, turn attention to playoffs
Mark Marietta
HOUSTON – On two occasions Friday night against Chartiers-Houston, the Jefferson-Morgan boys basketball team thought the game was over only to realize time was being put back on the clock.
Once was for a foul that was whistled and the other was for a player stepping out of bounds.
The Rockets had to wait 26 years for a section title, so what was a few more seconds?
Once the buzzer finally went off for real, the celebration was on.
A four-year goal was complete. Jefferson-Morgan had finally broken a quarter century drought without a section title with a 38-36 win against Chartiers-Houston Friday.
“I know there’s only a couple years on that banner, so it feels pretty good to add another one,” Rockets coach Brandon Lawless said. “This group of guys I have, since they came in as freshmen, I told them they were winners. I knew the heart they had. It’s the heart of champions. They’ve worked really hard over these four years, and I don’t think there’s a group more deserving of it. They play so hard and give me their full effort. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
The entire starting five for the Rockets, Brayden Ellsworth, Jeremiah Robertson, Jaymison Robinson, Dayten Marion and John Woodward, are seniors.
Their next goal is to win a playoff game.
That’s something Jefferson-Morgan also hasn’t done in 26 years. The last playoff win was in 2000 against Serra Catholic.
The Rockets are 20-1 overall and finished tied with Chartiers-Houston atop the Class 2A Section 3 standings at 13-1.
They’ll learn their matchup and seeding when the WPIAL releases the brackets today.
Getting the section title split came after an intense finish to Friday’s game. The Rockets played probably as good of a third quarter defensively as a team could play. They held the Bucs to one field goal and built a 12-point lead, but saw it slowly evaporate in the fourth quarter.
Chartiers-Houston clawed all the way back to tie the game at 36-36. Nothing was going right for the Rockets. Marion fouled out and they hadn’t made a basket in the fourth.
That was until Robinson made a layup with 10 seconds remaining for what proved to be the winning basket.
“It was pretty nerve-racking,” Robinson said of the ending. “We almost gave it away there. We weren’t knocking down free throws and didn’t put the ball in the basket, but our defense wins games. That’s what won this game.”
The Rockets have a game scheduled tonight with Brownsville at 7 p.m. They’ll know before that game tips what seed they’ll have in the Class 2A tournament.
With only one loss on their ledger, the Rockets are hoping to get a top five seed. They are only the second team to beat Chartiers-Houston in section play the last two seasons. The only other loss for the Bucs was on a full-court heave by West Greene’s Lane Allison last year.
Regardless of what seed they’ll get, they should get a home game and a prime opportunity to end the playoff win drought.
“Now we’re trying to break the ice on a playoff win,” Lawless said. “We set goals at the beginning of the season. Winning the section was one. We talked about that for four years and they accomplished that (Friday). Like I told them after the game, all of our boxes are not checked. We have things we are still preparing for and a playoff win is the next thing on our list. Hopefully then another playoff and a state playoff win and so on. The sky is the limit with this group as long as we continue to get better every week.”