MUSKEGON TWP. - For a few short minutes, it looked like Kyler Brainard’s 100th career goal was going to be the lone bright spot of an otherwise gloomy night for the Reeths-Puffer lacrosse team.
Instead it sparked a remarkable comeback that did not produce a win, but showed everyone that the Rockets are battlers who weren’t going to let their long winning streak end without a fierce fight.
Brainard, a senior and the Rockets’ leading scorer, scored his benchmark goal with 15 seconds left in the third quarter.
The goal ended a painful 7-0 scoring run that left Jenison with what everyone assumed was a pretty safe 11-4 lead headed into the fourth quarter.
But Brainard’s tally lit up his team, and the Rockets roared back in the final quarter, scoring 8 of the 10 final goals and pulling within one as the clock ran down.
R-P's Owen Greiner (12) shifts direction to escape a defender.
Reeths-Puffer’s last goal came with 1:50 left in the game, and unfortunately the Rockets could get no closer, falling 13-12 to Jenison on Thursday in a thrilling conference showdown on their home field.
A victory would have put the Rockets firmly in the driver’s seat for an O-K Conference Tier 3 championship. Instead the outcome left R-P and Jenison tied on top of the conference standings with identical 8-1 records and three league games remaining.
The loss also ended R-P’s proud nine game-game winning streak and left them with an overall record of 9-4.
“I’m always proud of these guys when they show grit like that and heart like that,” said R-P head coach Josh Robidoux. “They don’t care if they are down by eight goals. They find ways to make it close somehow. That’s an admirable trait for a team, but that admirable trait isn’t going to keep us playing at the end of the year. We’ve got to find a way to get those wins every time.”
Much of the game was uncharacteristic for the Rockets, who have a very explosive offense that produces a lot of goals every game. But there was a long period on Thursday when the goals would not come.
R-P's Avery Wolfe-Sabo (19) tries to get around tight defensive coverage.
R-P started out fine, with Brainard scoring two goals in the first quarter and the Rockets leading 2-1 heading into the second.
The Rockets went up 3-1 early in the second quarter on a goal by Carson Cooper, but Jenison answered with three goals, including one with 49 seconds remaining, and took a 4-3 lead into halftime.
The third quarter was a disaster for Reeths-Puffer. The Wildcats kept the momentum they grabbed before halftime and dominated play, blitzing the Rockets with seven straight goals over the course of about nine minutes.
The R-P defense seemed to disappear in the third, allowing Jenison to waltz in and score repeated goals from close range. The defenders also failed to get the ball out of the Reeths-Puffer zone so the offense could do its job.
“We went almost two quarters where we could not find the net or transition the ball,” Coach Robidoux said. “It wasn’t so much the offense as getting the ball from the defense to the offense.
R-P head coach Josh Robidoux addresses his team during a time out.
“I don’t think any team has kept us to that few goals in that amount of time. It was not characteristic of our offense. Jenison did a great job of shutting down our transition and fast break. They came in with a game plan and did a good job of executing it.”
Brainard’s third goal of the game and 100th of his career came with 15 seconds left in the third quarter, and Jenison took an 11-4 lead into the fourth.
That’s when the Rockets found their offense again and turned a potential drubbing into a thriller.
R-P opened the fourth quarter with four unanswered goals from Cooper, Owen Greiner, Brainard and Brooks Johnson to make the score 11-8 with 5:26 left in the game.
Jenison responded with a goal, then R-P’s Cohen Beck returned the favor about 20 seconds later to make the score 12-9.
R-P's Kyler Brainard (5) races a Jenison player for the ball.
Beck added another goal with 2:18 remaining and Brainard scored his fifth goal just nine seconds later, making the score 12-11.
Jenison scored with 2:01 left, then R-P’s JT Fansler put the ball in the net with 1:50 remaining, leaving the Rockets trailing 13-12.
The Wildcats, clearly rattled by the R-P scoring barrage, managed to stall and kill the rest of the clock and escape with the victory.
Reeths-Puffer has three conference games remaining against Coopersville, East Kentwood and Northview. Even if they win them all, there’s a chance they will have to share the top spot in the conference with Jenison. 
R-P goalie Gavin Wright deflects a shot away from the goal.
The O-K conference lacrosse divisions do not have co-champions, so in that event the champion would be determined by some sort of statistical tiebreaker.
“It’s not what we wanted,” Robidous said about being tied for the conference lead. “We wanted to win out. It’s a bummer.”
Robidoux admitted that the loss might prove to be a motivator for the Rockets, who had grown quite accustomed to winning during the nine-game streak.
“I don’t like to lose, the guys don’t like to lose, but in some ways I think it might serve as a wakeup call,” he said. “The things that we talked about during the week didn’t come to fruition tonight. It’s a bitter one. It’s going to sting.”