Wednesday, November 7, 2007

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Doug Harkins made nine saves for Ramapo, which held off a late Wayne Valley charge for a 2-1 win in the North 1, Group 3 state sectional semifinal.

FRANKLIN LAKES -- The game was just at its tipping point. There was a two-goal spread with just more than 15 minutes to play in Tuesday's North 1, Group 3 state sectional semifinal and the team that was trailing started to feel its postseason hopes slipping away. Elbows were starting to come up, yellow cards were being shown and every loose ball was being contested in a physical manner.

But before the action got too chippy, the game got real interesting.

Down to the waning moments of its state tournament life, Wayne Valley pushed up and pushed to within one goal with 15 minutes remaining and the reigning Passaic County champion kept pushing for the equalizer against Ramapo, the No. 2 seed and defending sectional champion, which seemed to have had the game in hand just a few minutes earlier.

On one sequence, Wayne Valley put three quality shots on the Ramapo goal, two of them saved by Doug Harkins and the other landed in the open left corner of the net when Kevin Bzdek pounded home the second rebound to get Wayne Valley within one goal with 15:04 left and the Indians had all the momentum.

Kevin Bzdek scored Wayne Valley's goal with 15:20 left in the second half and very nearly had the equalizer with five minutes to go.

Valley kept the ball locked in the Ramapo end in search of the tying goal and almost found it when another pileup in the penalty area led to the ball popping free and Bzdek, who hit one clean only to see it knocked down by a Raider defender with just over five minutes to play.

Despite the mad rush, Ramapo was able hold steady and come away with a 2-1 win that puts the Raiders into Friday’s state sectional championship against fourth-seeded Morris Hills.

“Once the game started winding down, they had to play with a bit of an urgency,” said Ramapo head coach Evan Baumgarten. “They did and they got one [goal] and momentum plays such a big role that they were going for another one. We held them off.”

It didn’t look there was going to be any urgency attached to the second half when Ramapo struck for its two goals in the first half, the first of them a pretty combination 15 minutes into the game.

Robert Santaniello put a Wayne Valley back under pressure near the sideline and forced a turnover deep in Ramapo’s scoring third. Santaniello cut hard toward near post before dropping the ball for Chris Kuehn, who kept the ball moving to Tom Breault. Breault placed his shot inside the second post for the 1-0 Ramapo lead.

John Fiorenzo converted a PK to put Ramapo up 2-0 with 14:38 to go in the first half.

“Rob made a great pressure on the defender. He stole the ball and had a nice opening,” said Breault, a junior. “He played a cross to Kuehn, I was behind Kuehn and I had a wide open shot for the goal.”

Ten minutes after taking the lead, Ramapo added to it when Nader Saadawi found himself locked in a race for a loose ball with Wayne Valley keeper Joey Tible. Tible played the man, the referee called for a penalty kick and John Fiorenzo chose the low right to give the Green Raiders the 2-0 lead.

Wayne Valley almost got one of those goals back less than two minutes before the intermission when Christian Garcia got moving left to right across the 18 and got off a hard shot back toward the way he came only to see Harkins close down the post.

The teams traded opportunities in the second half and once Valley cut the lead in half, it made the last 15 minutes all the more entertaining.

“It’s a phase in the game where a team is winning and they want to make sure they are defending and doing everything properly, so they are going to give some territory,” said Wayne Valley head coach Dan Kilday in explaining how his team wrested the play down the stretch. “The other side of that is that the team that is down really needs to take some chances and be a little more aggressive in their thinking.”

Joey Tible played well in net for Wayne Valley against an organized Ramapo attack.

But Harkins and the Ramapo defense held.

“I thought about the seniors and how this might be their last game and how I wanted to help make sure that it wasn’t said Harkins,” the junior keeper who finished with nine saves. “Our backs played well today and even when we were under pressure we knew we could get it done.”

That leaves Ramapo, which made it to the Group 3 state final game last year before falling to Shawnee, with a shot at a second straight state sectional championship at home against Morris Hills on Friday.

“It’s nice to still be in the state tournament after what happened in the counties (an upset loss to Englewood in the Round of 16),” said Fiorenzo, a senior captain. “After we lost in the counties we set a goal that we wanted to accomplish. We want to get back to the state final and so far, so good.”

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