Rockford defense, shooting deliver district title
Joey Nowak | The Grand Rapids Press
LOWELL -- It had been more than 20 years since Rockford and Cedar Springs
stood facing each other in a boys basketball game before Friday night's
Class A district championship in Lowell.
Red Hawks coach Andy Secor could have settled to wait another year.
"We're playing what I consider the North Carolina of the Grand
Rapids area," Secor said. "In my 11 years here as a head
coach or assistant, I don't know if we've played a better defensive
team."
The Rams, ranked No. 9 in the state, earned their third consecutive
district title and eighth in 10 years with a 48-36 win against the
Red Hawks.
Sophomore Ryan Majerle led the Rams with 19 points and nine rebounds.
Cedar Springs senior Simon DeMull finished with nine points, 15 rebounds
and four blocks.
Rockford (20-2) will play East Kentwood in a regional semifinal Monday
at Reeths-Puffer High School.
Cedar Springs (13-9), which relies on jump shots and its guard play,
had difficulty scoring against Rockford's stingy perimeter defense,
which also exposed the Red Hawks' lack of inside scoring.
Rockford coach Steve Majerle said he changed the team's defensive
scheme before the game, but realized midway through that reverting
back to the Rams' typical style was the key to success.
"Twenty-three years into coaching, I shouldn't have done that," he
said. "We had to get back to the way we play, and when we started
running and pressing a little bit, we extended the lead. We should
have been doing that from the beginning."
On the other side of the ball, Rockford's guards were able to outlast
a shooting slump and heated up just in time to pull away in the fourth
quarter.
Three consecutive 3-pointers from Ryan Majerle, senior Gabe VanderJagt
and another from Majerle gave Rockford a 30-21 lead early in the second
half. Though Cedar Springs cut the margin to two, the boost from 27
percent to 42 percent from beyond the arc between the halves was the
key for the Rams.
"They were giving us the open looks, and if we hit them, it's
over, and if we don't, they're in the ball game," Steve Majerle
said. "They're very small and they pack it in, and that's one
of the gambles they take. They back the zone in and force you to
shoot threes."
Both teams set the tone with pressure defense in the first half, exchanging
baskets for five lead changes and three ties in the first two quarters.
When Rockford tried to slow the game down with the nine-point lead,
Cedar Springs used strong rebounding and valued its possessions to
crawl back.
But cold outside shooting again plagued the Red Hawks down the stretch.
They shot 4-of-18 from deep in the game, and Rockford shot 8-of-23.
Both teams scored below their season point totals of more than 55 points
per game.
"We played a whale of a defensive game to hold that team under
50 to give us a chance to win," Secor said. "But being
in Class A for this year was more about playing Rockford than just
being in Class A."
