Rockford gains momentum
By Jeff Chaney / The Grand Rapids Press
ROCKFORD -- There would be no letdown this time for the Rockford
football team.
A week after beating Hudsonville on the road in a battle of
top-ranked teams, the Rams pulled away from a struggling Jenison
Wildcats team 38-6 in front of a packed homecoming crowd Friday
night at Ted Carlson Memorial Stadium.
"The last time we won against Hudsonville, we turned around
and lost against Jenison the next week, so you always try (and)
guard against (a letdown)," said Rockford coach Ralph Munger,
whose top-ranked team in Division 1 improved to 5-0. "This
wasn't our best week of practice, and also it was homecoming
week, so it was hard to focus."
The Rams' focus was a little blurred in the first half, as Rockford
grinded it out to a 10-0 lead through 24 minutes of play.
The highlight of the first half was when Rockford junior kicker
Paul Mudgett got the scoring underway by hitting a 48-yard field
goal midway through the first quarter.
After halftime, Rockford's offense began to hit its stride,
especially the passing attack.
Senior quarterback Tim McGee threw two long touchdown passes,
one to Nick Stokes and one to Cam Lawson, and the Rams scored
two times on the ground to put up 28 points in the third quarter,
which started a running clock in the fourth.
"We felt the passing game was there, but in the first half,
we didn't try to exploit it a lot," Munger said. "In
the second half, we opened it up a lot, and that worked to our
favor."
Jenison coach Irv Sigler Jr. was proud of the way his winless
Wildcats played in the first half, but was disappointed that
his team couldn't sustain that play through the game.
"I told our guys after the game that I liked our demeanor
at the start of the game, we were here to play," Sigler
Jr. said. "We just made way too many mistakes in the second
half. And they are an outstanding football team, and you can't
make that many mistakes against them."
The Wildcats avoided the shutout when senior running back Anthony
Koziatek went in from 4 yards out as the clock expired.
McGee finished the night by completing 7-of-10 passes for 146
yards and three touchdowns.
Of those 146 yards and three scores, 117 yards and two touchdowns
came in the decisive third quarter.