MUSKEGON TWP. - Every year everyone counts the Muskegon Big Reds out, midway through September.
And every year the Big Reds bounce back and win a lot of games, like they always seem to do.
The Reeths-Puffer football team is well aware of that, heading into Friday’s O-K Green conference opener against Muskegon at historic Hackley Stadium.
The fact is that the Big Reds have started each of the past four seasons, including this one, with an 0-2 record.
Two of those years they rebounded to make the state playoffs, and in 2023 they just kept rebounding and won a state championship.
R-P head coach Cody Kater.
This year the Big Reds opened the season with a 29-28 loss to Grandville and a 42-6 loss to Rockford, before bouncing back with a 21-14 victory over River Rouge last week.
Muskegon may be 1-2, but R-P head coach Cody Kater is not expecting anything less than the same old super tough Big Reds on Friday.
“That program – the coaching staff, that culture, and the belief they have in themselves - some would say is unmatched,” Kater said. “Going into Hackley, with all of its great tradition, we understand all the hardships that go into playing there against that team. We are not fooled, by any means, by a record.
“Defensively, they have a guy at each level that has college offers – on the defensive line, at linebacker and in the backfield. They understand what they want to do in their scheme and do a good job of executing.
“Offensively, they are again very physical up front, and they can break a play at any time.”
Reasons for optimism
Still, going into their annual battle with Muskegon, the Rockets are more hopeful than they have been in several years.
The last few meetings between the teams have not gone well for R-P.
They lost to the Big Reds 61-7 last year and 47-7 in 2024.
But the two prior games – in Kater’s first two years on the job – were much more competitive. R-P lost 28-20 in a real nail-biter in 2022, then lost 28-13 in 2023.
This year the Rockets are hoping the game might be a real good one again, and they have solid reasons for optimism.
They are 2-1 on the season, following a big 56-7 win over Greenville in Week 1, and a hard-earned 28-21 win over Grand Rapids Northview last Friday.
R-P is much more experienced on both sides of the ball than it was the past two years, when it won a combined four games. The Rockets have some talented skill players in key positions, including senior quarterback Brayon Swain and senior running back Ke’Ondre Sanders, just to name a few.
The Rockets could easily be 3-0, but were shot down by their own mistakes in Week 2 in a 17-14 loss to Grand Haven. R-P had a late comeback in that contest, but it fell short when they failed to recover an onside kick as the clock ran down.
“It starts with belief,” Kater said about giving the Big Reds a battle on Friday. “Playing those guys the last two years, late in the season with the injuries we had, we were in a real spot. We were not growing and getting better, like the teams we had the first two years.
"But this is a rivalry game, an in-county game, and our kids will be a little more focused this week. We believe in our kids, and we believe they are going to be prepared to play for victory on Friday might.
“Our week of practice has been based around that belief piece, so our kids can go in there and play with confidence. I truly believe we have a chance.”
'We have not hit our ceiling'
If there is one thing we know about the Rockets so far, it’s that they have a lot of fight in them.
They showed it against Grand Haven, when they rallied from a 17-7 deficit and made the game very close, and they really showed it last week, then they had to keep scoring to stay ahead of Northview, all the way to the end.
R-P opened the scoring on a 15-yard run by Ke’Ondre Sanders, then Northview answered and tied the game 7-7.
R-P scored on an 8-yard touchdown pass from Swain to Connor McManus and led 14-7 at halftime.
Northview scored in the third quarter and tied the game at 14-14.
R-P scored on a five-yard TD pass from Swain to Brendan Guikema and led 21-14, then Northview answered and tied the game 21-21.
The Rockets finally went on a 75-yard game-winning drive that ended with a four-yard touchdown burst by Sanders with 1:43 remaining.
Reeths-Puffer had more than its share of mistakes in the game, including two turnovers and eight penalties for 51 yards. Yet the Rockets kept plugging away until the job was finished, and Kater liked that part of it.
“One of our core values is to stay in the fight," he said. "We made the right plays at the right times, and it mattered. When we look back at the film., it’s a game we could have won 42-14, but we had some key mistakes that kept them in the game. Still I am very proud of how they continued to fight.”
Kater was thrilled with Sanders, who totaled 173 yards on 23 carries, including a huge 33-yard run on the final drive that set up the winning touchdown.
“As the game wore on he continued to run with a sense of violence he maybe had not shown before,” the coach said. “When that big moment arises, some people find it enjoyable and want to showcase themselves, and he is a guy who really leaned into it on Friday. He showed another notch we didn’t know he had.”
With two wins, the Rockets have now matched their win total from each of the previous two seasons, with six games left on the schedule, including Friday’s at Muskegon.
But Kater says there is still a lot of improving to do, with the toughest part of the schedule still ahead of his team.
“I would say, football-wise, we have some better players, but we understand it’s a marathon,” the coach said. “We want to speed things up a bit, and build up more depth and physicality. We are further along than we have been in past years, but we also have some players that we are counting on to get stronger.
“From out lens, we have not hit our ceiling. We are nowhere near where we want to be, in terms of the goals we have for this season.”
