With the crowd thinning out and his team heading to the locker room after a 42-28 victory over Traverse City Central Saturday afternoon, Rockford coach Ralph Munger stood at midfield and smiled..

It turned into a grimace.

Winning a first-round Division 1 playoff game at home clearly was smile-worthy. And the impressive way the Rams dominated in the first half, scoring on all six possessions to go on top 42-6 and send the clock running in the third quarter, would make any coach grin from ear to ear.

The grimace twitched into place during the second half. That's when the Trojans stopped the running clock, grabbed the momentum, shut down the Rockford second-string players and scored on three straight possessions.

Even when the Rams first string players re-entered the game, they failed to score for the first time all game.

But critical interceptions by Rockford's Dan Rothwell and Adam Lewis in the final five minutes of the game halted TC Central's comeback.

"That first half, it was a thing of beauty, it truly was," Munger said, smiling again. "Everyone looked good. It was a good demonstration of what you can do when everyone is on the same page. Our second kids were kind of shaky out there in the second half. When you don't play well, it can get ugly in a hurry.

"I wasn't overly concerned that we might lose the game, but I certainly don't like standing there watching that go on. Holy moly, it wasn't pretty. We have to see if we can develop more depth for next week. "

That's when Rockford, 8-2 and ranked eighth in the state, hosts Grandville (7-3) at 1 p.m. Saturday in a district finale. The Bulldogs beat Traverse City West 35-9 Friday.

"They are one of the hottest teams in the state without a question," Munger said about Grandville, which has gone 6-1 since losing 27-21 in overtime to Rockford on Sept. 12, including beating East Kentwood 42-32.

"They have their motors running big-time right now."

The Rams' motor was running smoothly in the first half. Rockford totaled 339 yards in the first two quarters and did all its scoring.

Spence Klukowski scored first on a 19-yard run to give the Rams a 7-0 lead. They added five more touchdowns in the second as Klukowski threw a 17-yard scoring pass to Bradd VanderVeen, who also ran in an 11-yard touchdown.

Kyle Osborn also scored from 6 and 8 yards out, and Jeff Dykstra scored on a 3-yard run. Drew Campanelli booted all six point-after kicks.

Meanwhile, Traverse City Central (6-4) had 157 yards in total offense and one touchdown -- a 20-yard pass from Mattias Johnson to Jeff Fancy -- in the first half.

"Well, Rockford is Rockford," said TC Central coach Kelly Clark. "They are going to come out and give you everything they've got. They certainly handled us in the first half. In the second half, they put their twos in there, they were getting all kinds of kids playing time.

"The thing we were happy to see is that not only did our kids play with their twos, but we even did with their ones. We were able to step it up and get stops like we hadn't done in the first half."

With 1:04 left in the third quarter, the Trojans' Greg Pinto scored from 20 yards out, and Ben Amon added the two-point conversion to stop the running clock.

Rockford fumbled the ensuing kickoff, and TC Central scored less than one minute later on a 20-yard run by Erik Burke.

That's when Rockford's starters returned, but they wound up 1-yard short on fourth down on the TC Central 33-yard line. Eight plays later, Johnson connected with Burke on a 44-yard touchdown pass to narrow the score to 42-28 with 7:15 left in the game.

All that remained were Rockford's key interceptions.