Rockford fends off Greenville
Tuesday, March 05, 2002
By Greg Johnson
The Grand Rapids Press

At halftime Rockford trailed the Greenville Yellow Jackets by a point, and Rams coach Steve Majerle decided to remind his players that half the teams lose in the first two days of the state tournament -- sometimes unbeaten teams among them.

The Rams apparently received the message. They clamped down on defense and pulled away to beat Greenville 65-53 in a Class A district tournament opener at Greenville.

Rockford (21-0), ranked No. 3 in the final Associated Press poll, limited the Yellow Jackets to 21 points in the second half and advanced to Wednesday's district semifinal against Forest Hills Northern (15-5).

"We did a great job on Zach Ingles all night, but in the first half we let their other guys kill us," Majerle said. "In the second half, we went out and did a much better job on the other guys."

The Rams often ran two players at Ingles, the area's leading scorer, and limited him to 18 points, 11 under his season average. Ingles, the 26th player in state history to score more than 2,000 points, was just 7-of-24 shooting.

"We decided to make him work for anything and everything," Majerle said. "We did that. He didn't get anything easy."

Ingles' father, Kent, the Greenville head coach, said he thought the officiating favored the Rams in their game plan. He noted that his son, who set a state career record for free throws made, shot just four free throws, and didn't have a single attempt until seven minutes remained in the game.

"The officials were their MVP," he said. "They didn't call anything under the basket at either end, and that turns out to be an advantage for the bigger team. We're disappointed. We thought we had a chance to win the game, but we were giving away a lot of points and a lot of pounds in there."

Greenville (16-5), whose biggest starter is 6-foot-2, had the most trouble with Derek Douglas. Rockford's 6-5 senior center had 16 points and 15 rebounds.

"Derek Douglas had put-backs that killed us in the first half, then he made the big plays for them in the second half," Ingles said. "We could have been up by several points at halftime if Douglas didn't get the put-backs."

Majerle said the Rams couldn't find an offensive flow against the pestering Yellow Jackets in the first half.

"When we hit 3s we sometimes forget about Derek in there, but we remembered he was in there in the second half and took advantage of it," he said.

Ingles, who finished his career third all-time among area scorers (2,130 points), was joined in double-figure scoring by teammates Brian Albert, who had 13, and Taylor Jorgensen, a four-year starter who had 11 points, but just one in the second half while battling foul trouble.

R.C. Douglas, Derek's brother and a 6-6 junior, added 12 points and 10 rebounds for Rockford, while senior Brian Cleland came off the bench to score all 10 of his points in the first half.

Rockford had a 31-25 advantage in rebounding.

"We didn't play our best, but we survived and that's key right now," Majerle said.

"We're going to have to get better if we want to go where we want to go, though."

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