ZEELAND - The Reeths-Puffer wrestling team’s season is proceeding very much like last year, which is a good thing in one way, because the Rockets ended up winning the O-K Green conference championship last year.
But R-P Coach Jared Fleming would have preferred a slightly easier route to the title this time around.
Last season, R-P’s only conference loss came against Zeeland East, and the Rockets went into the season-ending conference tournament tied with ZE and Holland for first place.
They won the tournament and therefore the conference title.
Now Reeths-Puffer is likely facing the same challenge after falling to Zeeland East 46-30 in the Chix’ home gym on Wednesday night.
Reeths-Puffer, now 3-1 in conference matches, still has upcoming O-K Green duals against Mona Shores, Muskegon and Wyoming. If the Rockets win all three, they will probably go into the tournament tied with ZE and Holland again, with another winner-take-all scenario.
“We still have some conference opponents, but now it’s kind of set up for the same scenario as last year,” Fleming said. “If things continue to progress, we will probably have a three-way tie going into the tournament again, the same setup as last year.
“Our guys wrestled hard, and Zeeland East did as well. It is what it is.”
The Rockets won five of the 14 matches, all by pin, which helped their point total.
Posting pins for the Rockets were Arin Maynard (106 pounds), Jake Rozycki (126), Ian Cook (132), Owen Schab (165) and Nathan Reeves (175).
The big problem was that Zeeland East collected four pins among its nine victories, and pins are worth six team points, rather than the customary three.
If most of those ZE pins had been regular three-point victories, the outcome could have been different.
“There were a couple of toss-up matches that we needed to win, and they won some of them,” Fleming said. “Several of those were by pin, and it piles up after three or four pins.”
The Rockets had an easier time in their second dual match of the night, a non-conference affair against Coopersville, winning 42-25.
