By Randy Gregory, Michigan Sports Radio
Photo courtesy of Miles Postema
The girls’ basketball team at Rockford has been on an impressive roll for an extended period for the vast majority of the season. That continued with an exclamation mark this week as the Rams pounded Hudsonville 70-41 at home on Tuesday, January 14 and followed that up by stifling Grandville 56-25 on the road on Friday, January 17. Both were OK Red wins and moved Rockford to 4-0 in league play and 12-1 overall. Hudsonville and Grandville were both over .500 on the season and had hoped to show they had made some progress in taking steps to challenge the Rams for league supremacy. But Rockford allowed little breathing room to either team in claiming the pair of victories,
“We struggled to shoot against Grandville, but we found other ways to win,” said Rockford Coach Brad Wilson. “I think early on we got a lot of deflections that led to transition points and settled in defensively. I’m not sure what we gave up per quarter, but it wasn’t much. We also had the ball moving offensively and we were getting everybody involved with good looks at the hoop. But again, it was not our best game offensively as a team, but Anna Wypych just continued to show what she can do on that end of the court. I am not sure what she ended up with but she just continued to hit shots all game long.”
The Grandville contest saw Rockford jump out to an 11-0 lead in the opening quarter and that eventually grew to a 16-4 Ram edge at the end of that eight minutes. That lead grew to 32-11 at the half and an insurmountable 51-16 after three quarters. Rockford played their backups for almost the entirety of the final quarter and cruised to the 56-25 win.
Wypych used the ladder method in her scoring trends for the game. She had eight points in the first quarter, nine in the second and ten in the third for 27 total points before settling in on the bench over the final eight minutes with the game well in hand. She was joined in double figures by freshman Addison Wypych with 11. Audrey Muterspaugh added seven in a strong effort and Jordan Mateer tossed in five. Mateer’s contributions may have been somewhat limited offensively by her standards, but she was a thorn in the side of the Bulldog offense defensively with multiple steals, deflections and back tips that either resulted in change of possessions or continual shots on offense.
“We continued to shoot the ball with a green light from three-point territory even though we struggled and ended up making enough to get a solid win against a rival at their place on a Friday night,” said Wilson. “Whether it is a slow game. A fast game, a physical contest or more of a skill game, we feel we can match up with anybody and we can play any pace in any style and be successful. And I think that is what makes our team special.”
The Hudsonville contest was another game that saw the Rams exert themselves early and jump out to a big lead to claim the 70-41 triumph. Anna Wypych led the way with 26 points and had a multitude of help in this game. Mateer tossed in 13, Kate Higgins had 11 and Addison Wypych contributed ten to place four Rams in double figures.
“We shot 55% from the three-point line against Hudsonville and that isn’t a huge surprise because we tend to shoot the ball better at home,” said Wilson. “When you are shooting the ball like that it really opens everything up defensively, It felt like we had everything rolling in that game and now we just need to continue to play at that level going forward.”
