If the Grundy County boys’ basketball team had a theme song, it could be “Don’t Stop Believing.” Tuesday evening, the Journey for the Yellow Jackets took them to Notre Dame, and their ride won’t stop there.
They battled to a 72-68 victory over the Fighting Irish, who had won the two regular-season meetings by a combined 69 points. With just its eighth win of the season, Grundy advances to the semifinals to face second-seeded Signal Mountain on Thursday.
Jacob Campbell, Levi Miller and Trevor Hampton each scored 17 points for Grundy, while point guard Austyn Cooper handled the Notre Dame pressure with 12 assists, eight rebounds and nine points before fouling out with 2:20 remaining in the game.
“Coach [Justin Bryant] told us before the game that we had to keep our composure and our poise,” Cooper said. “In practice he had our quickest, most aggressive players grab our jerseys and pull us down to get us ready for tonight.
“These past few games we’ve been playing a lot better, but this is definitely the biggest win of my career.”