MUSKEGON TOWNSHIP – The Reeths-Puffer girls basketball team sure didn’t stay down for long.
It was two years ago that the Rockets said goodbye to All-State senior Lauren Ross, following a season when they won conference and district championships.
Last year was more difficult for the Rockets, for a number of reasons, including an outbreak of COVID on the team in the early weeks of the season.
They lost five of their first seven games and finished the season 7-8 following a loss to Grand Haven in the opening round of districts.
[1]“Half of the team caught COVID right when the season started,” said Reeths-Puffer Coach Rodney Walker. “Just about every other team had played four games before we played our first game.”
The season was not an entire loss, however. There were definite signs of progress toward the end, with R-P winning five of its last seven contests. Several talented offensive players started to emerge – junior Arrionna Williams and sophomores Sophia Hekkema and Ariel Walker – and the future looked bright.
This season it has all come together for the Rockets again.
Reeths-Puffer finished the regular season last week with a 14-5 overall record and a 12-2 conference mark and earned a share of the O-K Green conference championship with Mona Shores.
[2]The Rockets got really hot toward the end of their schedule, reeling off four straight wins, including victories over conference powers Mona Shores (42-32) and Muskegon (50-45).
They collected their fifth straight win on Monday night with an easy 59-28 victory over Coopersville in the first round of the Division 1 district tournament.
The Rockets will host Kenowa Hills, an upset winner over Muskegon on Monday, in the district semifinals on Wednesday night. The winner will face the survivor of the Mona Shores-Grand Haven semifinal in Friday’s championship game.
So how did the Rockets make so much progress in one season?
[3]For one thing, the three young players who showed so much promise last year have developed into full-blown offensive threats.
Hekkema was averaging 16.7 points per game in the most recent MuskegonSports.com leader board. Walker was averaging 13.7 points and Williams was averaging 10.5.
As if that wasn’t enough, now there’s another force to be reckoned with in the R-P lineup – sophomore guard Brooklynn Tornes – who averaged around nine points per game during the regular season, then led the Rockets with 18 points in their win over Coopersville on Monday.
Tornes is the newcomer to the group. While the other three girls grew up playing together, Tornes transferred to R-P from Muskegon as a freshman, started developing her game on varsity last season, and is hitting full stride just as districts begin.
“I’m definitely getting more confident,” Tornes said, when asked about her big game against Coopersville. “It was nice, but at the end of the day Reeths-Puffer won. That’s all that matters.”
[4]“That was one of the good things that happened for us, having Brooklynn transfer from Muskegon to Reeths-Puffer,” Coach Walker said. “That helped us a lot to build the core group that has produced the way they have this year.”
With four big scoring threats in the lineup, it’s tough for opponents to come up with a good defensive plan to deal with the Rockets.
“Other teams can’t just focus in on one girl – they have to stop the whole team,” said Williams, one of only three seniors on the squad. “I know I can count on any person. If I pass them the ball, I know I’m going to get an assist.”
Of course having too many scorers on one team can be a problem if selfishness comes into play. Sometimes talented offensive players are concerned about their personal stats, and want to be the one shooting the ball.
Coach Walker said his players have bought into the concept of team success, and they’re having fun knowing that any of their teammates can get hot in any given game.
“We’re constantly talking about how, at the end of the game, all that matters is that Reeths-Puffer wins,” he said. “Everybody has bought into the idea that it doesn’t matter who scores. Every game someone out of this group – or someone else on the team – is stepping up.
“We went through that little stretch earlier in the season (when the Rockets started out 2-2), then everyone started realizing its better to be happy for the success of other people. When we look at the scoreboard at the end of the game, and it looks better for us than the other team, we’re good to go.”
The players echoed those sentiments.
“This season we’re focused on being a family,” Ariel Walker said. “We go into our huddles and say family, and we really mean it.”
“We’re all looking for each other all the time, looking for whoever has the hot hand,” Hekkema added. “We’re not being selfish or petty about it. We just want to win.”
[5]