Rockford Rams 55, Grandville 33
Redell, Rockford down Grandville
By Steve Ungrey / The Grand Rapids
Press
To Rockford coach Steve Majerle, it seems like every night the Rams have a different player with the hot hand.
Tuesday night at Grandville, it was Michael Redell's turn in the spotlight.
Redell, a 6-foot junior guard, drained six 3-pointers and finished with 20 points as Rockford remained unbeaten with a 55-33 victory over the Bulldogs.
In the third quarter, Redell scored 11 straight points, part of a 20-4 third-quarter run that helped the No. 5 team in Class A improve to 7-0.
"Our coach says we've got five guys who are capable of filling it up on any given night, and it felt good to have a good-shooting night," Redell said. "Things just opened up for me."
Rockford led 30-23 with 5:17 left in the third quarter when Redell went on his hot streak, starting off with a long three.
After two free throws by Grandville's Cameron Dampier, Redell went back to work. He drained two threes off passes from Alexander Briggs and Joel Visser and then finished the 11-0 spurt with two free throws.
Rockford led 44-25 after three quarters, after only being up 24-21 at halftime.
"How we do is nothing by design, it's just who ever's hot at the right time," Majerle said. "I still think we can get better offensively, but our defense has helped us get the turnovers we need to get easy baskets. Grandville's got a lot of weapons, so we had to choose our poison."
Rockford poisoned the rest of Grandville's offense save for Dampier, as the 6-4 junior center accounted for 18 of Grandville's 33 points.
Meanwhile, the Rams long-range offense got on track after a sluggish first quarter. Rockford shot 11-of-26 from behind the arc, holding Grandville to 12 points in the second half and taking over the game.
It was a sour note for Grandville coach Dan Remenap, whose wife Lesa gave birth Monday to a daughter named Marlee. His daughter's name is spelled differently than the last name of Rockford's coach, but already Remenap was thinking about a new name after the game.
"We may have to think about a nickname for now instead," Remenap said with a laugh.
"I think Rockford was the pigeon tonight and we were the statue. Rockford struggled a bit in the first half and then Michael just took over the game."
Rockford was missing its shots in the first quarter, which was fine with Remenap.
"Rockford had too many wide-open looks at the basket, we had some miscommunication on defense we took care of and then we were fine," Remenap said. "But Rockford's defense is just too quick to simulate, short of playing 5-on-6 or 5-on-7 in practice."
The loss was Grandville's second straight, after a four-game winning streak to start the season.
The only other scorer in double figures for the Rams was Drew Powell, with 14 points. R.C. Douglas scored eight points and grabbed nine rebounds.
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