Rockford wins game of 'scrappy defense, ugly offense'
By Jane Bos / The Grand Rapids Press

Two talented, defensive-minded teams led by quality coaches faced off in a typical contest Tuesday night. Nope, nothing essentially new here when Rockford and Holland faced off on the basketball court. We've seen this many times before from these two teams.

Even the final score was typical -- of the last two seasons anyway -- as Rockford hung on to post a 54-50 non-league victory over the visiting Dutch. " You've seen this before, huh?" said Rockford coach Steve Majerle. "It was a typical Rockford-Holland game: scrappy defense, ugly offense, mostly to do with the defense, and both are small."

Certainly, there were differences, too. Holland is led by first-year coach Steve Windemuller, and new faces and names dot the respective benches. And one big difference was evident down the stretch: Rockford (4-2) took better care of the ball and made the critical free throws to seal the win.

Leading 45-44 with about three minutes remaining, the Rams made 9 of 11 free-throw attempts. Meanwhile Holland (5-2) committed six turnovers in the fourth quarter. " I don't think it really went bad for us, I thought we got careless with the ball at the end," said Windemuller, whose team led 28-25 at halftime and was on top three times during the first four minutes of the fourth quarter. "We've got to take care of the seed better... treat it more like it was candy. We did get a little sloppy, but that was two pretty darn good teams out there.
" It was two teams who are very similar, two teams who went at it in a four-point game. We play snarly, tenacious-type defense, and so do they. Neither of us has a real power post game. They are more physical, and that might have worn us down, but our guys played as well as they could."

There's that similarity theme again. We've seen this one before. Both teams boast a talented guard, too. Rockford is led by senior three-year starter Michael Redell. Holland is led by senior guard Johnny Rodriguez. Tuesday, the 5-foot-8 Rodriguez played the strong 6-1 Redell, who signed with Cleveland State, as well as anyone ever has. And he held Redell to eight points, well below his 21-point average.

" That little guard, No. 3, he's a tough nut," Majerle said. "He saw our traps coming, we were putting all kinds of traps on him, and he would not turn the ball. " With Redell not scoring, though, we had other people step up, and that's a good thing." Sophomore Nick Wendling made the big step up. He came off the bench to led the Rams with 14 points. Ryan DeHaan, Rockford's inside force at 6-3, added 13 points and nine rebounds. Redell also totaled five assists.

Holland's big man, 6-1 Brandon Brandon, pumped in a game-high 24 points and grabbed eight rebounds. Rodriguez totaled 12 points and one turnover. " Johnny Rodriguez is a tough kid, a tough, gutty kid," Windemuller said. "He works his fanny off." He almost helped hand Rockford an uncharacteristic second-straight loss. Friday, the Rams lost their first conference game since the 2000-01 season, losing to Forest Hills Central 60-53.

But the Rams hung tough Tuesday. " I just think the guys made a very big step from last Friday," Majerle said. "We were more aggressive offensively. Probably some of our aggressiveness forced some bad shots, but at least we were attacking the basket. I saw a definite improvement. " I told these kids we don't have to play perfectly every time." But winning is, typically, pretty nice.