‘Survive and move on’: Rockets reach final despite sluggish night

PORT BYRON – Rock Falls girls basketball coach Craig Mammosser stepped out of the locker room Wednesday, exhaled and shrugged his shoulders.

“Survive and move on,” Mammosser said to a fan. “That’s what matters.”

Such was the consensus among the Rocket faithful after a 35-22 win over the Newman Comets at the 2A Riverdale Regional.

The Rockets (18-10) advance to the regional final against Riverdale at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Riverdale (24-5) beat Alleman 50-45 in the other semifinal game.

“We came out early in the game and weren’t running our offense,” Mammosser said. “Then I thought we started getting good shots, but we weren’t hitting them. Hopefully that’s a good sign. Maybe we’ll come out Friday and hit everything we throw up there.”

Rock Falls trailed 3-2 halfway through the first quarter before Addesyn Nailor drained a 3-pointer to give the Rockets a 5-3 lead.

From there, Rock Falls built a 9-5 lead before Newman’s Mary Alice Oswalt knocked down two buckets in the last minute of the quarter to tie the score at nine.

“For some reason, we were really nervous at the start of the game,” Rock Falls guard Morgan Mammosser said. “We needed to treat this like a regular game. We know Friday is going to be a bigger game, but we need to get ourselves ready mentally.”

Newman (11-19) struggled offensively, especially after junior Rachel Hageman left with a thumb injury in the second quarter. She tried coming back in the fourth quarter, but could not use both hands to grab the ball.

“She hurt it in the first quarter, then aggravated it in the second,” Newman coach Jay Howell said. “We weren’t going to bring her back in, but she wanted to give it a try. It became clear, though, that she just couldn’t grab the ball with both hands.”

Despite only scoring two points in the third quarter – both on free throws – Newman was within striking distance with 3:30 left to play.

The Rockets led 28-22 after an Oswalt score. Morgan Mammosser answered on the other end with a bucket. The Rockets scored the last five points of the game at the free-throw line.