BIG RAPIDS — Reeths-Puffer is on to the state final four after decisively defeating the Forest Hills Northern/Eastern co-op team, 7-3, in Saturday’s state quarterfinal game at Ferris State.
The Rockets advanced to a semifinal date with Detroit Catholic Central, ranked as the top team in the state across all divisions, Friday at the USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth. It marks the program’s second appearance in that round, having previously reached the final four in 2014.
Reeths-Puffer trailed by a goal after one period Saturday, but it has repeatedly shown its late-game bona fides - including a three-goal comeback against the same FHNE team in its last regular-season game - and didn’t make any structural changes during that first intermission.
“All year, we seem to start slow and we always find a way to play well towards the middle and end of the game,” senior Jaxon Stone said. “We’re used to that. We know what we’ve got to do and we just did that again.”
The second period proved to be an onslaught for the Rockets, who scored three goals in just over five minutes in the middle of the period to turn that 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead they’d never come close to giving up. The puck rarely left the R-P offensive zone in the period, and the Rockets jumped on any Bird Dogs’ mistake, including the turnover that quickly led to Stone’s go-ahead goal.
Stone had two goals in the game, but six different Rockets scored, showing off the kind of diverse attack that can give any opponent headaches.
“That team hung with us for a while, but they started wearing down,” Rockets’ coach Dustin Langlois said. “We have so much depth on our team. We have four lines that can go. It doesn’t matter who we put out there, they’re going to give us 110 percent the whole time. I think it was just that we had that extra little push to have everybody have energy towards the end of the game.”
In the first period, Hayden Taylor immediately responded to the Bird Dogs scoring the first goal of the game by firing one of his own in moments later. Tyler Tindall, Stone and Tyler Cuti had the three goals during R-P’s decisive second-period run.
The last 17 minutes of the game provided far more drama from the penalties that were called than any concern over the outcome. R-P plugged in two early goals to jump ahead 6-2 and effectively ice the game. The contest became more heated down the stretch as FHNE and R-P butted heads several times in post-play confrontations.
Langlois betrayed no anxiety over any of that, and luckily, R-P’s Eli Cuti, who took a stick to the right arm preceding one such confrontation, appeared to avoid serious injury.
“Some of the penalties were a little soft, I thought, for being a quarterfinal,” Langlois said. “You’re going to have a lot more hard-nosed playoff hockey. They tried to limit that a little bit. I think there were 17 penalties total on both teams, and that’s a lot. I don’t think it was that we played dirty games. I think they were just calling it tight and we let our emotions get ahead of us for a little bit there.”
The emotions were all positive as time ticked down, though, as the sizable pro-Rockets contingent that made the trip northeast celebrated a historic win. There was some serendipity in Ferris State being the quarterfinal site, as the same Rockets’ coaching staff was at the helm the previous time R-P reached that round, falling that day to Byron Center.
“Trust me, there’s not a second that I wasn’t standing out here before our game started looking at the ice remembering Byron Center taking it to us,” Langlois said. “They had a good team that year, but I had nothing but confidence in our guys and I knew it was going to be a different outcome tonight.”
In addition to Stone’s two goals and two assists, 11 other Rockets had a goal or an assist.
The Shamrocks present a tall order to the Rockets, but Langlois will bring a confident team to Plymouth Friday.
“I’m just really happy with the way the guys are playing,” Langlois said. “I can’t be more excited for this group of kids.”
