Saturday, December 19, 2009

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Junior Sarah Halejian had 15 points, 4 assists, and 4 steals as Ramapo escaped with a 42-40 Opening Day win at Old Tappan on Friday afternoon.

OLD TAPPAN – For many teams, opening night is a chance to get acclimated to the new season against league competition in a game that actually counts for something, unlike pre-season scrimmages. The NBIL, which was already known as the most balanced league in North Jersey, only got more competitive this season with the addition of parochial powers Holy Angels and Paramus Catholic. With an incredibly tough schedule for both Ramapo and Northern Valley/Old Tappan right from the get go, they hit the ground running against each other on Friday afternoon.

Just as it has for the past several years between these two teams, the game went right down to the final minute when Ramapo’s Deanna Devonshuk made the most of a second opportunity.

With the score tied at 42 and Ramapo inbounding the ball underneath the Old Tappan basket, Samantha Klie found Deanna Devonshuk wide open for a lay-up. Devonshuk missed, but grabbed her own rebound and put it back in with 10.7 seconds to play as Ramapo, the reigning Bergen County champion, escaped with a 44-42 win at Northern Valley/Old Tappan High School.

OT's Shannon Funsch scored a game high 18 points, including 4 three-pointers.

“Even though it was the first game of the year, we needed this win,” said Devonshuk. “Anytime we play Old Tappan it’s a huge game. With the league the way it is this year, every close game matters.”

Old Tappan got off to a hot start behind sharp-shooting senior Shannon Funsch. She hit a pair of three-pointers early in the first quarter and hit five of her six first-half shots. The Golden Knights held the lead until the final minute when Ramapo’s standout junior Sarah Halejian made her presence felt by hitting consecutive stepback jumpers. The first one gave Ramapo its first lead since the opening minute, the second (a three-pointer) just beat the buzzer before halftime to give the Green Raiders a 24-20 lead.

That evaporated quickly with Old Tappan clicking on all cylinders to start the second half. The Golden Knights quickly grabbed the lead and led by as many as seven points, 35-28, on Abbey Fallon’s only field goal of the game with just over a minute to play in the third period. But Ramapo trimmed the lead back to two points by the end of the quarter, setting the stage for another down-to-the-wire finish.

“We knew that if they got the lead up to nine or 10 points by the end of the quarter that we were in trouble,” said Halejian. “We just had to stay calm and get some stops on defense. It always starts with defense for us. When we get a few stops that kind of gets our offense going.”

Sophomore Kasey Wuetzel had a key steal with 3 seconds left that sealed the win for Ramapo.

Old Tappan held a late lead, but allowed Ramapo to hang around with some missed free-throws and some costly turnovers. Halejian had four steals, the biggest coming with 1:16 to play. Her steal and breakaway layup tied the game at 42.

Ramapo got the ball back and had a chance to go ahead underneath the Old Tappan basket with 16 seconds remaining in regulation. Everyone in the gym figured Halejian would get the ball, and Old Tappan overplayed her shading two players towards her side of the court. That allowed Devonshuk to sneak underneath to the weak side where Klie hit her with an inbounds pass. Devonshuk’s first attempt was off the mark, but the ball bounced right back to her. She laid it up and in to give Ramapo a 44-42 lead with 10.7 seconds left to play.

“The only good thing about missing the lay-up was that it happened so fast that I didn’t have time to think,” added Devonshuk. “I just grabbed the rebound and put it in the basket. I felt for a seconds that I could have cost us the game, but I’m glad it didn’t turn out that way.”

OT's Karli McMenamin finished with 8 points and 7 rebounds.

Old Tappan had one last chance, but never got a shot off. Ramapo sophomore Kasey Wuetzel, playing in her first varsity game, had a big second-half, including a steal with three seconds left that sealed the victory. Halejian led Ramapo with 15 points, four assists, and four steals. Wuetzel added 10 points off the bench.

Funsch led all scorers with 18 points, including 4-of-7 from three-point range for Old Tappan (0-1). Karli McMenamin added eight points and seven rebounds.

The win was especially important for Ramapo, which starts a run of nine games against perennial powers to open the season and earned an early leg up on the competition in the NBIL's Division 1.

“It’s nice to get a win like this on the first day of the season,” said Ramapo head coach Sandy Gordon. “We had to win this game defensively. I don’t think we were as consistent as we wanted to be, but that is tough to do against a tough team and a big rival in their gym, especially in your first game. But we kept fighting hard and we found a way to win, which as a coach is what you like to see.”

FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.