MUSKEGON TWP. - The Reeths-Puffer softball team – with a lot of first-year varsity players - got off to a surprisingly great start this season, winning its first 13 games.
But now it’s gut-check time for the youthful Rockets, because they have hit their first bump in the road.’
R-P split a pair of home games with Mona Shores on Tuesday, losing an early lead then coming from behind to steal a 7-5 victory in the opener, then losing another lead and falling 8-4 in the nightcap.
The Rockets, now 14-3 overall, have suddenly lost three of their last four games, including two one-run losses to Lowell on Friday.
Photo/Tyler Lirones
Now R-P will find out a lot about itself in the coming weeks as it strives to regain its winning ways.
“We just talked to them about how we’re having a mid-season lull a little bit,” said R-P head coach Sarah Bayle. “We got our first three losses in, what, five days or something like that.
“We know we have what it takes. A lot of our errors tonight were more mental. We need to just make the plays and we can’t strike out looking so much. But these are things that we can fix, which is good.”
The current mini-slump has not ruined any of the team’s lofty goals. 
Photo/Tyler Lirones
On Saturday R-P will compete for its third straight championship in the Greater Muskegon Athletic Association Tournament, popularly known as the city tournament.
‘The Rockets are also still very much in the championship race in the O-K Green conference. Tuesday’s loss to Mona Shores was their first in the conference, so they are no more than one game out of first place, with four O-K Green games remaining on the schedule – two against first-place Byron Center and two against Jenison.
Just the fact that the Rockets have such a great record at this point in the season, with so many trophy possibilities still in play, has been a pleasant surprise for Coach Bayle.
Her team lost five seniors to graduation last spring, including some very talented players, and started this year with six of 13 players who are brand new to varsity softball.
Photo/Tyler Lirones
“I think I was expecting to have a good team, but I was pleasantly surprised to see an undefeated streak for so long, because we are younger,” Bayle said. ‘”It says a lot about how gritty these girls are and how they find a way. They are doing really well, particularly for the age group.”
The Rockets did not play great on Tuesday, losing big early leads in both games. They showed a lot of determination in Game 1, however, stealing victory from the edge of defeat.
They led 4-1 after five innings, powered by an RBI single from Kenzie Jacobs and a two-run single from Tessa Ross.
Photo/Tyler Lirones
The Sailors erupted for four runs in the top of the sixth and grabbed a worrisome 5-4 lead.
Then the Rockets roared back in the bottom of the inning with three runs.
Lainey McDaniel led off with a single, Ross was safe on an error, then Jacobs delivered a two-run triple to give R-P a 6-5 lead.
Caydence Rettinhouse added an RBI groundout for the Rockets’ final run, then McDaniel pitched a perfect seventh inning to seal the win.
Photo/Tyler Lirones
“We didn’t play our best, we were a little sloppy in Game 1, but we found a way to dig it out,” Bayle said. “I told them it was far from perfect ball, but that was the most gritty I’ve seen them play.”
Game 2 started out great for the Rockets.
They scored two runs in the first inning when McDaniel singled and stole second, then Ross knocked her in with an RBI single before advancing to third and scoring on a wild pitch.
R-P added two more runs jn the second inning when Carlie Guikema singled, took second on a bunt, stole third and scored on an error by the Mona Shores first baseman.
Photo/Tyler Lirones
The other run came when Kennedy Masse reached base on the error, stole second, took third on a ground out, and scored on another Mona Shores error.
The lead evaporated in the bottom of the second, however, when Mona Shores scored six runs on six hits.
The Sailors added one more run in the fourth and one in the sixth to nail down the win.
The loss was R-P’s first to Mona Shores since 2023.
“A lot of little things went wrong,” said Bayle, whose team had some self-inflicted damage with a number of errors. “Shores has some good hitters over there. They hit the ball well, and then we had a couple little errors and some hesitation here and there (defensively), and that will do it. It's hard to come back after that.”