Rockford tops Jenison to keep share of league lead

By Steve Ungrey / The Grand Rapids Press

ROCKFORD -- For Gabe VanderJagt, everything about Rockford boys basketball is fun again.

That should come as no surprise, since the Rams are on a five-game winning streak following a 3-3 start to the season.

The streak was two minutes away from possibly being broken Thursday, but a late Rockford surge enabled the Rams to top host Jenison, 50-45, and keep a share of the O-K Red Conference lead.

The Rams are tied at 5-1 with Grand Haven, and both teams face off against each other on Tuesday.

"I think our whole team has done pretty well," said VanderJagt, a junior guard who led all scorers with 18 points. "We moved the ball well in the first half even though we didn't score an awful lot."

VanderJagt believed the third quarter, where Rockford outscored Jenison 14-9, was the turning point of the game.

"We had a lead and we were all making our shots, and we got into Jenison's heads that we weren't going to back down," VanderJagt said. "We mesh a lot better now as a team. We had a lot of people graduate from last year's team and we're getting to know each other better and having fun together."

Rockford (8-3 overall) overcame Jenison's 8-0 start but trailed 13-6 after one quarter before starting to chip away at the Wildcats' advantage. After trailing by one, 21-20, at intermission, Rockford used the third-quarter spurt to its advantage.

"We've been struggling as a team at the free-throw line and we did in the first half, and we couldn't get over the hump," Rockford coach Steve Majerle said. "We started to hit our free throws and our decision-making was excellent."

Although junior forward Tony Nelson scored seven points and grabbed seven rebounds in the first quarter, he was held to five points and five rebounds the rest of the way. Majerle said the team didn't do anything special to slow down or stop Nelson besides playing better on defense.

"We didn't start Mitchell Briggs out on Nelson because we didn't want Mitch in foul trouble, but eventually we put bodies on people and just executed," Majerle said. "Once we got the lead that was the best decision-making we've executed all year."

Although Jenison's Wes Trammell led his team with 13 points, the play of Rockford guard Brogan Bibler limited the damage the Grand Valley State-bound senior could cause.

In the end, Jenison (4-2, 5-5) needed to make its free throws, and the team missed four crucial ones down the stretch.

"Rockford made its throws and we missed those, and when you're down the stretch and at the line we've got to make those," Jenison coach Brett Dyke said. "We just have to finish. Obviously we've got a lot of work to do when it comes to close games. We had to control the perimeter a bit better than we did, because Rockford made some big threes on us."

Rockford also got 15 points and eight rebounds from Briggs.