Rockford Rams 67, Grand Rapids Creston 45

Rockford, FHC moving right along
By Jane Bos / The Grand Rapids Press

Forest Hills Central and Rockford took on the unfamiliar in first-round district action Monday and survived by nearly identical scores.

Now both state-ranked teams advance to more familiar territory for district semifinal action on Wednesday.

First, Class A's sixth-ranked Forest Hills Central outlasted Greenville, 68-45, to boost its winning streak to 20. Third-rated Rockford, which is unbeaten and hosting the district, held off Creston, 67-45.

O-K White champion Forest Hills Central takes on Lowell (8-12), the sixth-place finisher in the White, at 6 p.m. Wednesday. O-K Red champ Rockford battles Forest Hills Northern (12-8) -- a team the Rams have faced in the past five districts -- at 7:30 p.m.

The final is set for 7 p.m. Friday.

"Yeah, playing Lowell really solves scouting issues we had with Greenville," said FHC coach Ken George, whose team beat Lowell twice during the season, once in overtime. "I expect it to be another great game. We'll see how it goes."

The Rangers' 6-foot-10 senior center Kyle Visser, who's headed to Wake Forest, got his team going Monday. He scored nine of his 21 points in a critical second-quarter effort that increased Forest Hills Centrals' lead to 38-21 at halftime.

Greenville (12-9) did pull to within 46-37 late in the third quarter, but it wasn't enough.

Visser, who grabbed 11 rebounds, got help scoring from James Telman with 14 points and Curt Ludtke with 13 points. Ludtke also recorded 10 rebounds.

The Yellow Jackets were led by Justin Ray, who came off the bench to total 10 points and five rebounds.

"I think the big thing was we disrupted their offensive flow," George said. "Greenville likes to set up, and when we disrupted that, we made spurts of our own."

After struggling to a 24-12 lead at halftime, Rockford used a big spurt of its own to claim the win over Creston (12-9) in the nightcap. The Rams went on an 8-4 run -- thanks to seven points by Alex Briggs -- to start the second half and cruised.

"In the first half, we didn't shoot real well, we didn't attack inside like we should," Rockford coach Steve Majerle said. "We did that in the second half. The strength of our team is that if you shut down one player, someone else pulls it up."

The balanced scoring showed. Michael Redell led the Rams with 17 points, while Drew Powell tossed in 15 and Briggs had 11. R.C. Douglas added nine points.

Briggs and Powell also pulled down seven rebounds each as Rockford won the rebounding battle, 36-28.

The Rams also did better at the free-throw line. Rockford made 24 of 31 attempts, while Creston went 10-for-23 at the line, including making a dismal 6 of 16 in the first half.

"When you miss free throws like that, and you're only down by 12, it's anyone's game at that point," said Steve Lee, one of two coaches leading the Polar Bears after coach Jeff Bauer quit last week. "We just couldn't find the basket in the first half. We missed a lot of easy ones."

While first-year coach Bauer wished the Polar Bears well, he did not feel it was right for him to continue to coach.

"I took the job for the kids and to do it right, instilling credibility, teamwork and discipline," he said. "I made my position clear from when I took the job what I expected. At the end, I wasn't allowed to do it, and it was time for me to go."

So last week, Lee and Terry Sare took over the coaching duties.

The coaching change "may have affected the kids a little bit, but we still ran a lot of the same stuff we have been," Lee said. "Rockford is a very impressive team. We tried a lot of things defensively to stop them, and it didn't work."

Cameron Bradfield scored 16 points to lead the Polar Bears. Terse Nande added 13 points and eight rebounds.