Reeths-Puffer fans who attended Tuesday's girls basketball game saw their Rockets at their worst and their best.
At their worst, the Rockets had a really bad second quarter and fell behind West Ottawa by 12 points at halftime. At their best, they outscored the Panthers 20-5 in the third quarter and took back the lead for a short time.
In the end, however, missed free throws and rebounding issues doomed R-P in a 60-50 loss to West Ottawa in an early-season battle of two good teams.
The hot hand for West Ottawa was junior guard Gabby Reynolds, who amassed 36 points. The Rockets were led by Brookyn Tornes with 24 points, including four triples, and Ariel Walker with 13.
R-P's Irelyn Niklasch (30) and Billie Tryska (2) set up on defense.
The Rockets were outrebounded 37-24, and many West Ottawa boards were on the offensive end and resulted in putbacks.
R-P was outscored 23-12 at the free throw line, with the Rockets missing just over half of their attempts.
“I think the biggest thing tonight was the rebounding - us not getting second shots, and not securing rebounds to prevent them from getting second shots,” said R-P Coach Rodney Walker. “I thought (West Ottawa) did a great job with free throws and we did not do a great job.
“I think we definitely got killed on the boards. If we can clean that up and hold teams to one shot we will be good to go.”
Ariel Walker (24) brings the ball up the court for Reeths-Puffer.
Reeths-Puffer slipped to 2-3 with the loss, which might seem odd for a team with three returning starters from last year’s O-K Green co-champion squad.
But the Rockets purposefully weighed their schedule down with strong non-conference opponents in the early weeks, to toughen up for the pending conference season and beyond.
R-P has now lost to Big Rapids, East Kentwood and West Ottawa, which are all undefeated so far this season. Their next game is Saturday on the road against DeWitt, another unbeaten team.
“I just finished talking to (the players) about the schedule being purposefully done this way to get them ready for our league,” Walker said. “That’s the whole plan, to make sure we are ready.”
R-P's Brooklynn Tornes inbounds the ball.
The Rockets looked like the better team for much of the first quarter and clung to an 11-10 lead heading into the second.
The second quarter was a much different story, with West Ottawa outscoring the Rockets 17-4 and taking a 27-15 lead into halftime.
R-P was 1-for-12 from the floor in the second quarter, with its only basket – a triple by Tornes – coming with four seconds left in the half.
The Reeths-Puffer team with the explosive offense returned to the court in the third quarter and made the game interesting again.
Reeths-Puffer coach Rodney Walker instructs his team during a time out.
The Rockets fell behind 31-18 with two minutes gone, then went on a 17-1 run over the rest of the quarter to take a 35-32 lead into the fourth. Tornes led the uprising with eight points, including two three-pointers.
But West Ottawa opened the fourth quarter with a 10-0 run and ended up sealing the victory from the free throw line. The Panthers sank 18 of 30 shots from the charity stripe in the final eight minutes.
“We had a great third quarter, but in the fourth quarter we had a few errors here and there, problems with rebounding and stopping the ball in transition,” Walker said. “We’ve got to get better at those things.”