Sunday, February 28, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Sarah Halejain had a game-high 23 points for Ramapo, which led wire-to-wire in a 63-53 win over Holy Angels that gave the Green Raiders their second straight Bergen County champioship.

MAHWAH -- Sandy Gordon, the Ramapo girls basketball coach, is thorough in her preparations. She uses the white board in the locker room to great effect, illustrating game plans, diagramming offensive sets and adding in some words of wisdom that might somehow inspire her team before it takes the floor. On Sunday, before the Bergen County Girls Basketball Tournament final against Holy Angels, Gordon's final written instruction was short and to the point.

“The last thing I put on the board was that everybody has to do their part,” said Gordon. “And you know what? We did.”

Whether it was junior point guard Sarah Halejian running the show; Deanna Devonshuk capably playing the role of No. 2 scorer; Erin O’Hagan providing hustle and point production off the bench; Emma Giegerich, Erinn Hogan and Casey Woetzel controlling the glass; Sam Klie creating a lane to the basket late in the game or Emily Sassano playing extended minutes to mitigate foul trouble, there was a least one play in the game that any of the Green Raiders who stepped on the floor could point to as their contribution.

Basketball is a team game and all of Ramapo’s players got to share in the celebration of a 63-53 win and a second straight Bergen County girls basketball championship.

Holy Angels' Nicole Pepe converted a three-point play to get her team to within three points at 30-27.

Ramapo took the lead 41 seconds into the game on two Halejian free throws and never gave it back. It even threatened to blow the game open early when Woetzel’s bucket on the fastbreak with 1:40 left in the first quarter gave Ramapo a 16-4 lead. Although Holy Angels would make a game of it thereafter, the fast start was just was the Green Raiders needed to settle into a groove. On the other side, playing catch up all day was not exactly the position that Holy Angels wanted to be in.

“We were tight. There is no question that we came out tight and that hurt us in the first quarter. We were able to make a couple of runs, but we were never really able to make up for the slow start,” said Holy Angels head coach Sue Liddy, whose team missed three of its four first quarter free throw attempts. “Missed opportunities and missed free throws really hurt us early and left us with a hill to climb.”

Ramapo led by 12 points on three different occasions in the first half, the final time at 26-14 when Halejian nailed a pull-up jumper with 2:06 to go in the second quarter, but Holy Angels battled back to within 26-19 at the break when Jillian Crawford converted off the offensive glass and Jaclyn Jerkovich made a three-pointer from the corner.

The Angels kept up their pursuit early in the third quarter and got it back to a one possession game with a chance to tie. Another Jerkovich three-pointer from the corner and a three-point play the old fashioned way by Nicole Pepe had AHA trailing just 30-27 and forced Gordon to burn a timeout to staunch the momentum.

Deanna Devonshuk had 18 points as Ramapo's reliable second scorer.

A turnover right out of that time out gave the Angels the ball back and chance to continue their surge only to see Halejian come up with a steal. She sent in Devonshuk, who converted on the fastbreak, drew a foul and made the free throw. On Ramapo’s next possession, Devonshuk snuck in for a weak-side rebound and polished off another three-point play. In a span of just one minute, Holy Angels went from three down with possession to nine points in the rear at 36-27.

To its credit, Holy Angels got right back after it. Jerkovich scored on a reverse layup from the baseline, Pepe made two free throws and then worked the offensive glass. She grabbed a rebound, kicked the ball to Crawford in the corner and then got it right back before making the basket and getting the Angels back to within 36-33 with 2:07 to go in the third quarter. Also working in the Angels favor during those two successive spurts was that it put Giegerich and Hogan, Ramapo’s starting front court, in serious foul trouble.

Halejian could feel the heat and she responded. She made a tough fall away jumper from the foul line and was fouled on the play.

“They were actually going on a run at that point and I thought that we really needed to answer back,” said Halejian. “The fall-away jumper works for me, I guess.”

Jaclyn Jerkovich led Holy Angels with 21 points.

Although she missed the accompanying free throw, she hit a three-pointer with six seconds left in the third quarter to put her team up 41-33 and once again impress the coach on the opposite bench.

“She is one kid that can break down a defender. Most females can’t do that, but she is very good at what she does,” said Liddy, who has won over 620 games in her illustrious career at AHA. “I told the kids that we can’t let her have the ball at the end of quarters. We had to have the ball at the end of quarters or else she is going to score. She is very difficult to stop in those situations.”

Halejian looked like she had closed out the third quarter scoring when she made a three-pointer with six seconds left to put her team up 41-33, but a foul called against Dakota DeBellis as she was attempting a desperation three from near midcourt at the buzzer gave her three foul shots and she drained all three to pull the Angels to with five points heading into the final eight minutes.

Fouling a three-point shooter hurt Ramapo again in the fourth when Jerkovich was hacked behind the arc and made all three from the line to get the Angels to within 47-41 with 4:55 to play, but Ramapo (20-6) started to pull away for good soon after. Halejian made a free throw and Devonshuk made both ends of a one-and-one to kick off a 7-2 run. Klie ended it with her fastbreak basket when, on the dead run, she spun in a layup around a defender to kick the Raiders lead back into double digits 54-43 with 2:33 to go.

Holy Angels was able to close within five points at 56-51 on two Pepe free throws followed by a Jerkovich three-point play with 1:37 left, but the next time down the floor Halejian finished a lefty layup and made a free throw to end the suspense and the Raiders 4 of 6 free throws in the final minute to wrap up their second straight county title after winning the first in the program’s history last season.

Ramapo's Erin O'Hagan came off the bench to score 6 of her 10 points in the fourth quarter.

“It’s absolutely amazing. I still can’t believe it right now,” said Hogan, one of three seniors on the Ramapo roster and one of two in the starting lineup. “We split [the regular season series] with them so we knew it was going to be a hard game, but we wanted that repeat so bad.”

Halejian led all scorers with 23 points, including two three-pointers, Devonshuk followed close behind with 18 and O’Hagan made it three Green Raiders in double figures, scoring six of her 10 points in the fourth quarter. Woetzel had four points, while Giegerich, Klie, Hogan and Sassano each contributed a field goal apiece.

For Gordon, last season’s championship was special, this year it was personal.

“The last game that my dad saw us play was here and he passed away in June. He was my biggest fan, so for me it has been an emotional year and I just tried to keep my focus,” said Gordon, fighting back tears. “It was tough to walk into this gym because my dad was with us last year when we made the run.”

And what a run it has been for Halejian, the junior who went over the 1,000-point mark earlier this season, has a shot a 2,000 for her career and already has two county championships under her belt with a legitimate chance to make it three next year. When there is discussion of the best girls basketball players in Bergen County over the last decade takes place, Halejian has to be in the conversation alongside those like Heather Zurich of Pascack Valley, Tahirah Williams of IHA, Toby Petrocelli of Holy Angels and Alyssa May of River Dell.

To win two county championships in a row “is really unbelievable. We returned a lot of our players this year and that really helped us because we were really experienced coming into this game,” said Halejian. “Holy Angels is a younger team and hadn’t really been here before,”

Holy Angels, a team without a senior in its starting lineup, got a team-high 21 points from Jerkovich, 17 from Pepe and 10 from Crawford. DeBellis (3 points) and freshman Melanie Lockett (2 points) rounded out the scoring from the Angels.

If Ramapo is to make it three county titles in a row next year, then it would be no surprise if they once again had to go through Holy Angels, which only figures to improve from this experience and will be little changed by graduation one year from now.

“We hadn’t been here yet, but now that we have been here we know what it takes to win. With that said and if things fall into place, maybe we’ll get back here next year,” said Liddy. “We have a state tournament to prepare for now and we’ll get to work on that now, but next year…who knows? I would love to get back here and I think we can.”

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