MUSKEGON TWP. - The regular season is almost over, and making the state playoffs may not be in the cards for the Reeths-Puffer football team.
The Rockets are currently 37th in the Division 3 playoff rankings, and the top 32 get in.
As R-P head coach Cody Kater put it, “There is a very slim chance. A lot of things would have to go right for us.”
But the Rockets still have a lot to play hard for and prove on Friday night, when they visit Whitehall for their last scheduled game.
One goal will be to put a positive cap on what has been a disappointing regular season in some ways.
The Rockets are currently 3-5, but are only a few points removed from being 5-3 and very much in the playoff picture.
The biggest trouble has come in games they knew they had a good chance to win.
They beat two of the opponents on that list - Greenville in Week 1 and Grand Rapids Northview in Week 3 - but lost to Grand Haven 17-14 in Week 2 and Forest Hills Northern 21-19 in Week 7.
Now they have one game left on the winnable list, and while there is nothing they can do about the missed opportunities, they have the power to play well against Whitehall, and perhaps go out on a winning note.
The Rockets are battling some challenges, to be sure, with a few injuries, fatigue from a long season and disappointment from recent letdowns.
Now the task at hand is to pull themselves off the mat following last week’s 55-14 loss to powerful Byron Center, square up their final assignment and leave it all on the field.
“I would say we are fighting through a few different things,” Kater said. “It’s the end of the season, it’s not ending the way we wanted it to, and we’re still kind of working through that. We are going to be missing some pieces. We have some guys who are out with injuries or disqualification. It’s going to be tougher than we wanted it to be.
“But the core of the team continues to be locked in. They know we have to be mature and be ready for this fight we have in front of us.”
A better farewell
It won’t be easy. Early in the season, Whitehall looked like a team that might be easy prey by Week 9. The Vikings started off 0-4, then rebounded with wins over Montague and Hart.
They have lost their last two games, but just barely, falling to Oakridge 22-16, then losing a 27-26 squeaker to Ludington, the champion of the West Michigan Conference.
They may not be the Vikings of the recent past, who made the playoffs for six straight years prior to this season, but they can be counted on to put up a fight.
“I would say honestly, they may be bigger up front, and they have some good athletes who have some experience,” Kater said. “Last week they almost beat their conference champion. That came down to the last few minutes. We are not taking these guys lightly, just because they come from a smaller school.
“We understand the history of their program the last few years, and it’s going to be their Senior Night, so they are going to play incredibly hard.”
R-P's own senior aspect is another big reason for the Rockets to play well on Friday.
Their Senior Night was last week against Byron Center, but this is actually, in all likelihood, the final game for the Rockets’ 11 seniors, and winning will be incredibly important to them.
Kater very much wants to send them off on a high note, something that was denied last year’s seniors on what turned out to be one of his team’s worst nights of 2025.
The Rockets lost 37-22 to Forest Hills Eastern in Week 9, after piling up 145 yards in penalties and three turnovers and squandering a halftime lead.
It was a perfect lesson on how not to finish a season.
“I think a real lesson was learned, by the staff and the players,” Kater said. “We had a conversation about that earlier this week, about what a hard lesson it was, but now we have to go out and execute on Friday night.”
Renewing old rivalry, building toward next year
Another motivation for R-P will be the renewal of a great old rivalry that has been in mothballs for a long, long time.
Way back when, R-P and Whitehall used to play every season, as members of the old Seaway Conference. That was before Reeths-Puffer experienced rapid enrollment growth and gravitated toward competition with schools closer to its own size.
But the two schools met on the football field every year between 1960 and 1984, when the series ended with a 39-19 R-P victory. The Rockets lost to the Vikings 26-7 in 1983, but won the prior three matchups.
Overall Reeths-Puffer has a 19-6 record against Whitehall.
While the two teams have not locked horns in years, they still come from bordering school districts, and a lot of the athletes and their fellow students know each other and will be very eager to gain bragging rights.
For older R-P fans who don’t find as much fun going up against distant opponents like Forest Hills Northern, Grand Rapids Union or Byron Center, this matchup is just perfect.
“There was some strategy in scheduling this game for Week 9,” Kater said. “It’s very important to the communities, and our kids do know a lot of their players.
“It will be important to walk off the field knowing we did everything we could to execute our game plan, no matter the result.”
Perhaps the biggest motivation for the Rockets on Friday will be to regain some momentum as they start the long, year-round process of preparing for next season.
That will be important, because in a lot of ways, this has been a preparation season for R-P.
The fact is that 34 of the 45 players on the R-P roster are juniors, sophomores or freshmen. Many of the current juniors have been getting a lot of playing time for two years now, and many of the current sophomores gained valuable experience this season.
That means it will be a veteran crew that takes the field at Rocket Stadium in 2027, with high hopes of cashing in and perhaps getting to the postseason.
“We not only have a lot of starters coming back, but a lot of rotational guys will be back, too,” Kater said. “We have a core group of underclassmen who have really grown throughout the season. Now we have to do a better job of developing them in the offseason, more efficiently and effectively.
“We have to find a way to not have two losses by a total of five points. In some ways those games are won in January and February. We have to develop them more, mentally and emotionally, in the offseason.”
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