Rockford survives off night against Lowell
By Jeff Chaney / The Grand Rapids Press

GREENVILLE -- It wasn't pretty, but the Rockford boys basketball team is moving on. The Rams struggled on both ends of the floor and had to hold off a pesky Lowell team 48-42 at the Class A district at Greenville High School Tuesday night. Rockford now advances to the championship game Friday night where it will play the winner of tonight's game between Northview and Greenville. "The most important thing is that we won," said Rockford coach Steve Majerle, whose team improves to 16-5. "I told the kids afterwards that that wasn't our best game, but we're still moving on and that's the name of the game at this time of the year."

The Rams came out flat, and if it wasn't for the pay of senior forward Casey Doyle, the Rams may have been looking at an early deficit instead of a 15-8 lead after eight minutes of play. Doyle scored nine of his 13 points in the first quarter and grabbed several offensive rebound that kept play going for the Rams. " We had an off night," Doyle said. "But we got through it and stayed alive. " I was fired up at the start. It's the tournament and you need to notch things up. I just wanted to go out and help my teammates because we were struggling." Doyle finished the first half with 10 points, but more importantly grabbed seven rebounds, including five on the offensive end. " Casey has done that more times than you think," Majerle said. "That's his game."

Lowell coach Jeff McDonald was impressed. " He kept bouncing off the floor and grabbing big rebounds for them," McDonald said. "Casey was great tonight." But McDonald has some gamers himself, and the Red Arrows only trailed by one point, 22-21, at the half. Rockford got some breathing room in the third quarter when senior guard Derek Brower hit a pair of big 3-pointers and Doyle had an old fashion 3-pointer and never trailed the rest of the game.

" We struggled," Majerle said. "We did all right on defense, but we struggled, and part of that has to do with Lowell doing a good job, and the other has to do with the refs calling it close and we never adjusted." Rockford senior guard Bryan Pasciak led all scorers with 14 points. Lowell was paced Brett McMahon's 11 points, nine coming on three 3-pointers.