MUSKEGON TOWNSHIP – Success has a lot to do with timing and team depth.

The Reeths-Puffer girls soccer team opened the season pinning a lot of hopes on junior Sophia Hekkema, who broke the school’s single-season scoring record last year with 21 goals.

But Hekkema, who is also a basketball standout, got off to a slow start this spring, which could have been a big problem for the Rockets.

Luckily senior Emma Martin was there to fill the void.

Martin was a standout junior varsity player as a freshman, but did not play high school soccer during her sophomore or junior seasons. But she re-adjusted quickly this spring and started scoring right away, while Hekkema was still working on her game.

Now both girls are scoring at a high clip,  making Reeths-Puffer a dangerous team in districts.

The Rockets, who opened the tournament with an 8-0 win over Muskegon last week, will face a tough challenge visiting Spring Lake on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the district semifinals. Spring Lake was the state-runner up last season and is ranked in the top five teams statewide in Division 2 this year.

The winner of the game will advance to play the winner of the Whitehall-Ludington semifinal in Thursday’s championship game.

While beating Spring Lake will be a tall order, the Rockets certainly have a solid chance, with both Hekkema and Martin playing well lately.

“It’s been a tale of two halves,” Reeths-Puffer Coach Kody Harrell about his two big scorers. “Emily got a lot of goals early on, because she’s right there behind Emma and is in position to score. Against Zeeland East, coming out of spring break, she scored a hat trick. Emma carried the load at the beginning and Sophia has been scoring a lot in the last few weeks.

“We’re very fortunate. Together they have more than 30 goals.”

Harrell thinks Hekkema’s slow start to the season had something to do with basketball. She’s a top player on the Rocket’s girls varsity and was busy with that sport all the way up to soccer season.

“With basketball season, I don’t think she touched a soccer ball much, so it was must a matter of getting that first touch under control and more composure on the ball,” the coach said. “It took a few weeks.”

Hekkema said it helped a lot to realize that the scoring load could be shared, and she didn’t have to do it all.

She currently has 20 goals and 15 assists, with a chance to break her own single-season school record. Her assist total has almost doubled from last year, when she had nine, and having Martin in the lineup has definitely helped in that respect.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself, thinking like I have to do all this to help my team win,” Hekkema said. “Then I started trusting my teammates more, and that really helped. I’ve had a ton of assists on goals by Emma. It’s worked out in our favor.”

Martin showed a great deal of potential as a freshman three years ago, scoring 26 goals for the R-P junior varsity. She made the varsity as a sophomore, but the season was cancelled due to COVID, and she simply decided not to play last year as a junior.

“I just felt burned out,” Martin said. “I regret it, but I did it.”

Luckily she kept her skills sharp by playing on a travel soccer squad and was ready to step in as a big contributor this season. She currently has 16 goals and 10 assists.

“Me and Sophia are side-by-side in goals and assists,” Martin said. “That’s very rare to happen. We’re close in both of those areas.”

Ironically, Hekkema started the season with very little idea about what kind of addition Martin would be.

“I really didn’t know who she was before this year,” Hekkema said. “I mean who knew who each other were from school, but not in soccer, but we just formed that bond immediately.

“We’re both really fast and we like using our speed as an advantage. We know how each other play. We know each other inside and out.”

The Rockets’ record this season – 13-7 – suggests that they are a good team, but perhaps not as good as they could be with two major scoring threats in the lineup.

But Reeths-Puffer plays a tough schedule, particularly within the competitive O-K Green conference. Four of their losses came against conference powers Mona Shores and Zeeland West.

They also lost 3-1 a few weeks ago to Spring Lake, their opponent on Tuesday.

Those losses were not just warm-up games for districts, Harell said. The Rockets definitely wanted to win and thought they could, and now they believe they’ve improved enough to turn the tables on elite opponents in the tournament, starting with Spring Lake.

“We’re a good soccer program, I have high expectations, and I know what these kids are capable of,” Harrell said. “We fully expect to beat those teams.

“We lost to Spring Lake 3-1 and we scored the first goal. That was good score line against a great opponent, and it allowed us to go back and hit the drawing board and go over certain tactics. I like our situation going into the game.”

Hekkema said Spring Lake will be a huge challenge, but after playing the Lakers once and making some adjustments, she thinks the outcome could be much different.

“We know they are a really good team.” Hekkema said about the Lakers. “They played us in districts last year and sent us home, which really hurt. This time we are feeling really confident, now that we’ve had a chance to better adjust to who we’re playing against.”