West Ottawa rolls rival Rockford 65-39 for a season sweep
Greg. Buckner
@hollandsentinel.com, (616) 546-4271
Posted Feb. 5, 2016 at 11:28 PM
Holland, Mich.
It’s been a long time since West Ottawa swept rival Rockford in boys basketball in a season. So long that Panther coach Steve Windemuller couldn’t say if it’s ever been done. Windemuller and the Panthers can now look to Feb. 5, 2016, as the day it happened after West Ottawa pummeled Rockford 65-39 Friday night to sweep the regular season series with the Rams, move to 12-0 overall and increase its lead atop the OK Red standings at 5-0 in the conference.
“Very proud of the effort our guys had tonight. We had a great week of preparation for our guys and we were focused and ready to go,” Windemuller said. “We hold ourselves to a certain level of play and how we want to execute. I thought we were good tonight and I thought that was a really good, complete game for us.”
West Ottawa came out firing from the get-go, racing out to a 12-4 lead following a putback from Jake VanTubbergen with five minutes remaining in the first quarter.The packed-house home crowd was loud by then on a night the Panthers also held their “Purple Power” night fundraiser for cancer research — something that wasn’t lost on Tubbergen and his teammates.
“When you have an environment like that, you always love to come out and play good in front of all the fans,” said Tubbergen, who led the Panthers with 15 points. “It’s just a lot of fun when you get that kind of support. It always helps because when we play well, the fans get into it and we take it up another level.”
The Rams would pull within four late in the first until the Panthers closed the quarter with a floater from VanTubbergen and free throws from Tyler Bosma for a 19-11 advantage. Rockford kept hanging around in the second quarter, though, cutting the deficit down to six midway through the quarter to force a Panther time out. That time out did the trick as the Panthers came back and used a 3-point play from Liam Cavanaugh to spark a 7-0 run and open up a 33-20 advantage at halftime.
And then the wheels came off for Rockford in the third quarter. The Panthers carried over their momentum from the end of the first half to rip off an 8-2 run that began and ended with 3-pointers from Bosma and Nick Wehrmeyer, respectively, for a 41-22 Panther lead two minutes into the third.
That big run helped the Panthers hold a 21-7 scoring edge in the quarter to go into the final frame with a 54-27 cushion. Leading 62-34 after a Xavier Wade drive, West Ottawa cleared the bench with 3:28 remaining in regulation and put a bow on a win that certainly won’t make the Panthers’ season, but should do plenty to erase any doubts this Panther team is for real.
“We try to keep the guys as grounded as we can. It’s hard to do that nowadays with social media and all that. But I think our kids are pretty focused and really level-headed,” Windemuller said. “They’re not naive about things. I think they’re smart and understand they’re probably not the best team around. But so far we’ve played very well and had some fortunate things happen for us, so we’ll keep taking it one at a time.”
Bosma and Wehrmeyer each had 13 points for West Ottawa, with Jared Miller contributing 11 points.
Michael Peterson led Rockford with 15 points.
