MUSKEGON — Reeths-Puffer fought off a late run by Coopersville to hang on for a 66-61 victory in its home game of the Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame holiday classic.
The game was a rematch of an equally close district game in March that the Rockets won, but Wednesday’s appeared to be in hand when they went up by as many as 14 points. The pesky Broncos, though, forced a few turnovers, drilled a few key three-pointers and pushed the game to the final minute with their aggressive zone defense.
“He’s got a good team,” R-P coach Nate Aardema said of Broncos’ counterpart Pete VanKampen. “They play hard. We got a little fatigued, and instead of running our stuff, I think we were super tentative and got out of attacking a little bit, and that cost us. But they made a couple deep threes and we were a little late on some closeouts and some switches.”
Coopersville got as close as a point when Porter Kretschman, who led the Broncos with 18 points, hit a trey to make it 60-59. Jaxson Whitaker responded with a driving layup for two, and the Rockets were able to hang on from there by making four free throws.
Whitaker and Travis Ambrose, as they so often do, provided the key plays down the stretch to enable the Rockets to hang on.
“Jaxson and Travis combined for 47 of our 66 (points),” Aardema said. “They aren’t just seniors but four-year seniors, all-state caliber seniors. Those guys help, believe it or not. It is nice to be able to lean on them.”
For Ambrose, who had a game-high 26 points and 15 rebounds, the game represented an opportunity to battle on the inside with a fellow Division I football signee; Gabe VanSickle, the Broncos’ center, signed with Ohio State the same day Ambrose inked with Central Michigan. On the basketball court, at least, Ambrose had the statistical edge, though he credited VanSickle, an offensive lineman, for being tough to handle.
“You can’t really move him,” Ambrose said with a smile. “He’s a strong fellow. I’ll give it to him. It’s fun, knowing that there’s athletes on the court.”
Early in the game, sophomore Marvin Moore was a major factor, scoring nine of the team’s first 14 points in a fast-paced first quarter. Moore didn’t score again, but his emergence has made Reeths-Puffer a more dangerous foe.
“There’s times where he just looks fantastic,” Aardema said. “He’s a beneficiary of how other teams defend us. Whether it’s man or zone, Jaxson and Travis get a lot of attention. They’ve seen triangle-and-two, they’ve seen box-and-one, they’ve seen just about every defense. Marvin can be kind of forgotten about, third or fourth on a scouting report, and he’s talented enough to take advantage.”
In the second half, R-P went back to attacking the basket and had success with it to build its lead, with Ambrose and Whitaker leading the way. All that running could’ve been a factor in the team’s late-game fatigue.
“It wasn’t one guy,” Aardema said. “It was like one guy would make a mistake and then it’s like, ‘Alright, let’s take a deep breath. Let’s move forward.’ Then another guy would make a mistake. It was a lot of fatigue, and they were switching their looks. Really, what it came down to is we stopped running our stuff and were just trying to survive instead of score.”
By hanging on, though, R-P sent a message about its toughness - and its ability to handle a tough zone defense.
“That’s the thing about us; we’re a gritty team,” Ambrose said. “It’s a very well-coached team, and a very well-coached zone. It’s nice knowing that we beat them and we can handle a zone like that.”
