By Ron Rop
LocalSportsJournal.com

MUSKEGON – Not too many boys’ basketball waltz into the home of the Muskegon Big Reds and accomplish what the Reeths-Puffer Rockets did on Tuesday night.

The game plan was set and the Rockets executed it to perfection in a 63-45 victory over the No. 2-ranked Big Reds, which suffered their first loss of the season.

Reeths-Puffer (13-1, 7-0) now sits alone at the top of the OK-Green standings, one game ahead of Muskegon, which is now 10-1, 6-1. The Rockets were listed honorable mention in this week’s state rankings in Division 1.

It was evident right from the start that Coach Nate Aardema’s team was on a mission. Their zone defense caused the Big Reds fits right out of the game and when they ventured inside, there was 6-8 Travis Ambrose to swat away some shots. The senior scored 24 points, pulled down 14 rebounds and blocked nine shots. He altered several other shots down low when the Big Reds tried to penetrate.

“The scheme wasn’t as important as how we executed it,” Aardema said. “Last year in the district, we had some success with that and tonight we did a good job of rotating when we were supposed to and finding the shooters we were supposed to. The big thing is we were able to get back in transition. I feel like we protected the ball really well and when we did turn it over, it typically wasn’t ‘live ball’ turnovers.”

Led by Ambrose with seven points in the opening quarter, the visiting Rockets led 14-8 at the first stop. Most in attendance had to believe it was just a matter of time before the Big Reds came storming back, but that didn’t happen.

“I think I called one timeout to stop a run,” said Aardema, whose team was able to quell other runs during the course of play.

The second quarter was the Marvin Moore show as he scored seven of the Rockets’ 13 points and helped fashion a 24-11 halftime lead. Moore had 12 of his 14 points in the opening half.

“Marvin was attacking the glass, especially in the first half,” Aardema said. “Marvin is a sophomore who played in the district final against them last year and played well. He’s not afraid of any moment.”

Again, you had to figure it was just a matter of time before Muskegon mounted a comeback and got back to within contention. A 6-0 run made it 26-17 in the early minutes of the third quarter, but again, Reeths-Puffer had an answer and took a double-digit lead into the final quarter at 37-25.

The final quarter was a whole lot of fun for the Rockets, which featured a couple of Jaxson Whitaker dunks, which got the Rocket followers even more riled up than they had been the entire game. When Whitaker threw down a one-handed dunk with 3:13 left to make it a 15-point lead, that was the final dagger.

Whitaker finished with 13 points and Brayden Mitchelson, who had a strong game, finished with eight.

Muskegon was led by Keashaun Johnson, who scored 11 points off the bench. Montrel Oliver, Jr. added nine and M’Khi Guy had eight.

“There’s the humble part of me that says it’s just another game, but that’s not reality,” Aardema said. “I don’t know how many games they lose in this place.”

Muskegon entered the game with a 34-game league winning streak.