By Randy Gregory, Michigan Sports Radio
Photo courtesy of Miles Postema
The girls’ basketball team from Rockford has taken on multiple teams ranked in the top ten of the state of Michigan over the course of the 2024-25 season. The regular season came to a conclusion this week with a continuation of that tendency as they made the long bus ride to Frankenmuth on Tuesday, February 18 to take on a very good Eagle squad. In a defensive struggle, Rockford emerged victorious by the final score of 45-36 in a game where every possession was a dog fight. The Rams concluded the regular campaign at Holland West Ottawa on Friday, February 21 with a resounding 69-21 win that left them at 21-1 on the season and a perfect 10-0 in OK Red play.
“We ran into a matchup zone at Frankenmuth, which is something you do not see a lot of during the season,” said Rockford Head Coach Brad Wilson. “So, we struggled early on but I felt like we found our groove toward the second half and we were pretty lights out defensively all game long. They had one exceptional player that I think hit five threes, but other than that we really shut them down and only gave up 36 points. So offensively it wasn’t our best game but we found a way to win somewhat comfortably in a difficult road game in the middle of the week.”
Anna Wypych led the Rams in scoring against Frankenmuth with 14 points in a contest where every point was crucial to the final outcome. Kate Higgins added nine and Jordan Mateer tossed in seven for Rockford. Audrey Muterspaugh and Addison Wypych both contributed six points to the Ram win.
In the game against West Ottawa the Rams poured in triple after triple to win going away. Rockford hit fourteen three-pointers on the night led by Miss Basketball candidate Anna Wypych. Wypych had six triples on the night and in the process add to her incredible litany of school single game and career records. This time it was a single season record of three-pointers as those six made it 76 so far in a season with hopefully many more contests to come. Mateer added three triples and Addison Wypych contributed a pair as well.
The Rams built a 23-13 lead after the first quarter as Anna Wypych set a torrid pace with 15 points in that frame alone. The Rams hit five triples in the first quarter before cooling off a touch in the second quarter and only hitting four. The Rams stretched the lead to 40-21 at the half before really breaking it open in thr third quarter with a 22-4 run. That made it 62-25 after three quarters and allowed Wilson to get a plethora of playing time for this entire roster in the final eight minutes.
“West Ottawa played a lot of zone defense tonight and we moved the ball around pretty well and got good looks,” said Wilson. “We didn’t make them at all times and we got a little stagnant there for a while but when we are hitting shots like that, we are pretty tough to beat. We basically had only a three-man show scoring there in the first half and we talked to the kids about that during the break. We made a few adjustments offensively and defensively and I thought it was much better in the second half. We sometimes settle on the outside shot but we worked on the high low offense in the second half and got much better looks at the rim. We feel like we can win in a lot of different ways and just try to work at all of them for whatever eventuality may arise.”
Anna Wypych led Rockford with 28 points despite playing less than three quarters. Addison Wypch added ten and Mateer tossed in nine. Freshman Kendall Bires had seven points of her own in a solid second half for the Rams.
The Rams will now await their opponent in the State district tournament that begins for the girls on Monday, March 3. They have a dead week this week as far as games but will look to get as much work as they can get in in order to maintain their momentum. The Rams will be the top seed in the district that will be contested at Muskegon.
