Monday, February 23, 2009

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Sarah Halejian scored a game-high 11 points for Ramapo, which scored the first 8 points of the game and pitched a shutout in the fourth quarter in knocking off Pacack Valley in the Bergen County semifinals.

MAHWAH – Ramapo had jitters like any team would have going into a Bergen County Girls Basketball Tournament semifinal against NBIL rival Pascack Valley. It was possible that the Green Raiders could have struggled to adjust to the size of the court at Ramapo College or the nerves of playing in front of a big crowd. But not only did Ramapo get off to a quick start, it threw in a dominant finish for good measure.

Ramapo forced five straight turnovers and started the game on an 8-0 run and then remarkably held the Indians scoreless in the fourth quarter as sixth-seeded Ramapo advanced to the Bergen County final for the third time in four years in surprisingly easy fashion with a 35-20 win over Pascack Valley, the No. 7 seed.

“Coach (Sandy) Gordon said that playing defense would help get the jitters out and she was right,” said Ramapo’s Sarah Halejian. “I was a little more aggressive on both ends today because I knew how big this game was and I trusted my teammates. We weren’t favored to get this far, but we felt that we could do this and now we’re here.”

Ramapo started jumping the passing lanes right from the outset as Pascack Valley struggled to get into an offense early. Sophomore Samantha Klie opened the scoring with a jumper off the glass then capped Ramapo’s opening spurt with a steal and dish to Halejian for a layup. Just over three minutes into the game, Ramapo had an eight-point lead and the Indians had yet to attempt a shot.

Terry Ely had 7 rebounds for Pascack Valley.

“Before we even got a shot off, we were behind the eight-ball,” said Pascack Valley head coach Jeff Jasper. “Ramapo played exceptional defense on the perimeter. That mixed with us not passing or catching the ball well equaled up to a big problem.”

Pascack Valley answered with a 7-2 run, capped by a Maggie Ely jumper to cut the lead to 10-7 late in the first quarter. But those were her only points of the game and Ramapo maintained a slim lead before getting a bit of luck heading into the locker room. Ramapo’s Ana Drehwing banked in a three-pointer to give Ramapo a 20-13 halftime lead.

“Sarah (Halejian) gets a lot of attention because she’s a great player, but we have a lot of people that can score,” said Ramapo’s Samantha Klie. “It is tough to cover all of us and we’re all capable of hitting big shots. The key was that we got a lot of big stops defensively and we didn’t let them get on a roll.”

The Indians got back to within three on an inside basket from Traci Corra. But Halejian answered on the other end by beating a double-team with a spin move and converting a short jumper just before the third-quarter buzzer to give Ramapo a five-point cushion, 25-20, heading into the final eight minutes of regulation.

Sam Klie did a little bit of everything, finishing with 10 points, six rebounds, and a game-high five steals.

Pascack Valley showed what it is capable of in the fourth quarter of big games last week in its upset over second-seeded Teaneck, but this time around the Indians could not buy a bucket, and that was because of the Ramapo’s 2-3 match-up zone that gave them problems all game long.

Halejian started off the final stanza with a jumper and Erinn Hogan followed with a putback to quickly push it up to a nine-point lead. The Raiders scored the rest of their points on foul shots and did the unthinkable in not allowing a single point in the quarter to finish off the game in style.

“Give Ramapo credit where credit is due, we got beat in every facet of the game,” added Jasper. “Ramapo came in with a great gameplan and executed it. We can’t feel bad about this. This wasn’t one of those coulda, shoulda, woulda kind of games. I thought we played well defensively. But when you manufacture no offense and score 20 points in a game, you deserve what you get and you can’t expect to win no matter how well you play defense.”

Klie did a little bit of everything, finishing with 10 points, six rebounds, and a game-high five steals for Ramapo (23-2). Halejian led all players with 11 points to go with four rebounds, four assists, and two steals.

Jaclyn Martin (left) and Pascack Valley got to within three points late in the third quarter.

Terry Ely pulled down a game-high seven rebounds and her sister Maggie had six boards for Pascack Valley (20-5). No PV player scored more than four points as the Indians shot just 24.3-percent from the floor (9 of 37) and attempted just one free-throw in the entire game compared to 20 free-throw attempts for Ramapo.

Ramapo advances to next week’s Bergen County final where it will face fourth-seeded St. Mary’s, a 42-39 upset winner over top-seeded IHA. Both teams are looking for their first-ever county titles. It will be a matter of who can control the pace of the game. Either way, the Raiders are excited for the challenge.

“You work all year to get to this point and this is where we want to be,” said Ramapo head coach Sandy Gordon, who led Ramapo to the title game as a player back in 1984. “We talked before we even went out today that we would have to create our offense off of our defense. Not often you are going to hold a Jeff Jasper-coached team to 20 points, so I’m very pleased with our effort. We started off hot and finished as strong as we have all season. We have nothing to lose next week. We hope to come in and play as well as we did today.”

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