Rockford faced the double-edged sword of not only having to face a talented Muskegon squad in an MHSAA District title contest on Friday, February 27; they also had to set foot on Muskegon’s home floor in an intimidating venue. Both teams are ranked well within the top ten in the state, and they were meeting in a reprise of last year’s district title tilt that saw Rockford pull out a thrilling win on a corner triple at the buzzer. This time around it was a blazing start from the Rams that saw them jump out to a 16-0 lead that grew to a 24-5 edge at the end of the opening quarter. A stunned partisan Big Red crowd could only stare in disbelief as the Rams posted an 83-70 win to advance to the regionals next week at Alma High School.
“This is the toughest place to win a basketball game in the state,” said Rockford Coach Kyle Clough. “And that is a compliment to Keith (Guy, Muskegon Head Coach) and his program. So when we visualized this night, you never see things playing out this way. So, it was an incredible job by our kids of being ready to go tonight for something we have been talking about for a couple weeks about when we get to this moment. It was going to be their moment; it isn’t mine anymore. They can’t hear me over here anyway and that is why I am jumping around like a buffoon half the time. This incredible leadership we have with having four players who played in this game last year. I thought that was a huge difference, but we still have two sophomores and a freshman who start and really came out ready to play in this atmosphere. And I can’t say enough about Jake (Bascom) and Dylan (Gross). Those two seniors have been our anchor this year and both were outstanding tonight.”
Rockford came out of the gates swinging and put on a display of basketball for the opening eight minutes that was beautiful in every facet of the game. The Rams scored inside, outside and everywhere in between as they also managed to completely stifle the Muskegon offensive attack with a primarily zone-based defense that was quick to match up. Rockford poured in five triples in the opening quarter with sophomore Eli Wolfe accounting for a pair of them. Wolfe had nine points in the opening stanza that included a pair of triples from well behind three-point line…