Rockford Rams 49, Northview 42

Rockford survives Northview
By Jane Bos / The Grand Rapids Press

Rockford coach Steve Majerle acknowledged his team's lack of focus in the second half and its poor free-throw shooting at the end of a tight game.

Still, the Rams won.

He acknowledged that, too.

In spite of it all, Rockford posted a 49-42 regional semifinal victory over rallying Northview at Grand Haven Wednesday. The third-ranked and unbeaten Rams advance to Friday's 7 p.m. finale. They take on Muskegon, a 68-65 winner over Holland in Wednesday's nightcap.

Northview, which outscored Rockford 25-20 in the second half, ends its season 14-9.

"We will take the win," Majerle said. "I'm happy we won. Northview played really well, with a lot of passion, and they did a very nice job. We may not have deserved the game, but we will still advance.

"If we play like this, somewhere along the line, it's going to bite us in the butt. We're finding ways to win. I just hope it doesn't catch up with us until next year."

Friday's rematch with Muskegon will be interesting. When the two teams faced off in Muskegon on Feb. 18, Rockford rallied from a 14-point deficit late in the third quarter to post a dramatic 53-52 win.

"After watching our performance tonight, they will have lots of confidence in their ability to beat us," Majerle said. "It was choose your poison with them and Holland. But Muskegon is extremely talented. They have a big kid in the middle (6-foot-9 Callistus Eziukwu) we need to take care of."

It's that big-man-in-the-middle thing that gave the Rams the most fits Wednesday. Then, it came in the form of Northview's 6-7 senior center James VanRees.

VanRees dominated inside, scoring 18 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. He totaled 11 points and eight rebounds in the critical second half.

"We didn't do the things we wanted to get done inside," Majerle said. "We let VanRees have his way with us. We wanted to make him work for his points, and they were too easy."

The Rams made it look easy in the first half.

After trailing 2-0 early, they connected on six 3-point attempts to go on top 29-17 at halftime.

Junior point guard Michael Redell led the first-half effort, sinking three of his four 3-pointers, for 11 of his team-high 14 points. Senior guard Drew Powell also pumped in a pair of 3-pointers in the first half, scoring 10 of his 12 points.

"No, I don't think we were intimidated, but I think in the first half Rockford got after us," said Northview coach Mike Kaputska, whose team lost in the regional finals a year ago. "They played great defense, they took away a lot of our offense, a lot of our rhythm. In the second half, we had much better rhythm."

The Wildcats certainly got swinging in the second half.

They went on a 10-4 run in the first six minutes of the third quarter to pull to within 33-27. Entering the fourth, they trailed 35-29.

Rockford senior Kevin Wurn scored all six of his team's points in the quarter.

In the final eight minutes, Northview pulled to within four points three times, the last of which came with 51 seconds to go after a basket by Nicholas Barker.

But the Wildcats missed their final four shots, while Rockford connected on 3 of 6 free throws to seal the win.

In the final two minutes of the game, the Rams went 3-for-9 from the uncharitable stripe, including missing the front end of three one-and-one situations.

"It was very uncharacteristic of us to miss free throws at the end," Majerle said. "We have been tough at the end of games all year, especially with the lead, especially in the bonus situation, but nobody was making free throws. It happens."

Powell and Redell got help scoring from Wurn and Briggs with nine points each.

Zach Huising, who fouled out with 2:07 left in the game, also reached double figures for Northview with 12 points.

"I don't know if you can ever feel good about a loss, but our kids competed hard, especially in the second half, and I'm really proud of them for that," Kaputska said. "If we could get a few more shots to fall, we could really have made a run at them.

"We couldn't get that big 3, they were missing free throws. They left the door open for us, we couldn't convert. We needed a couple of big shots, and we didn't get them."