Monday, October 20, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Kellie Wiederhold scored the game's first goal in the 11th minute to set the tone in Ramapo's 4-0 win over Ridgewood in the quarterfinals of the Bergen County Girls Soccer Tournament.

OAKLAND -- The Ramapo girls soccer team entered the Bergen County Tournament as the No. 6 seed, a number that even Paul Heenehan, the all-time winningest coach in the history of New Jersey high school girls soccer, had to admit might have been a little better than the Green Raiders might have deserved at the time with two losses and a tie working against it (check it out in our NJS.com Spotlight from Oct. 6). But he also added that his team was starting to ‘get it’ as the tournament grew near.

On Sunday, in the quarterfinals of the Bergen County Tournament, Ramapo not only “got it” but they used it all in a 4-0 rout of No. 4 Ridgewood at Indian Hills High School.

“We came to play, baby. We came to play,” said Heenehan, whose team improved to 9-2-2 on the season. “We’ve been preaching for eight weeks follow shots, put pressure on the net and good things happen. Every game was a case of follow pressure and it is just about being relentless in front of the net.”

Ridgewood keeper Grace Horwitz made 8 saves under a heavy workload.

Ridgewood actually got off to an effective start, but 11 minutes in Ramapo seized control. Amy Van Dyk struck a corner kick into a pile at the 18 where Sarah Halejian spit the ball back out to Van Dyk in the corner. Using her second chance perfectly, Van Dyk served to the far post where Kellie Wiederhold, who recently accepted a scholarship to play at Holy Cross, ran on and headed home the game’s first goal.

“We knew coming into this that Ridgewood is the higher seed and that we were the underdog. That just got us that much more pumped,” said Van Dyk, a senior who has been through the county tournament wars in her three years as a varsity player. “We definitely communicated more, we found each other’s feet and we worked very hard.”

After taking the lead, Ramapo never let up. It won the midfield and used it advantage to set up opportunity after opportunity going forward. Ramapo had a goal waived off in the 20th minute when it was ruled that Halejian had come from an offside position and freshman Amanda Baumgarten hit a high cross from deep in the corner that Brooke Bandazian flicked just wide in the 29th minute.

Three minutes later, Bandazian got another chance off a Halejian cross and she headed it off the crossbar. When the ball bounced back into play, Bandazian deposited it into the back of the net for the 2-0 lead that Ramapo took into halftime.

Senior Amy Van Dyk sent in the cross that led to Ramapo's first goal.

“I can’t say that they were the prettiest goals that they scored, but they had a lot of hustle and desire on the second balls and we didn’t show that,” said Ridgewood head coach Jeff Yearing, whose team was playing without four injured starters. “We’ve been in the habit lately of trying to play catch up outside of what our game plan is and that has become problematic. We are a possession team, we can’t play a direct game, we don’t have enough speed to play directly against teams like that, so we count on our tactical ability. We had it for the first 15 minutes and then we lost our whole concept.”

What it meant that when Ridgewood’s two most dangerous offense weapons, Kelly Conheeney and Samantha Cermack, did gain possession, it was usually on the defensive side of midfield or deeper and they had little chance to slice through Ramapo’s well-organized defense.

Meanwhile, Ramapo had no such problems building its attack. Seven minutes into the second half, Bandazian drew contact inside the 18 but outside the penalty area. Taylor Schulte came up from the back to take the restart and put the ball into a scrum close to the goal line. The ball eventually popped free and Bandazian hopped on the rebound for a 3-0 lead.

Senior Kelly Conheeney had Ridgewood's two best chances to break up the shutout.

Conheeney did create two opportunities for herself from long range in the second half, but one barely flew the bar and the second was right at Ramapo keeper Emma Giegerich, the junior who made five saves in her first start of the season. Ridgewood keeper Grace Horwitz finished with 8 saves under a heavy workload.

Baumgarten closed the scoring inside the final minute when she ran through a rebound of Avery Jackson’s shot to notch her third goal of the season and her first ever in the county tournament.

“I just try my hardest to put the ball in the back of the net when I get on the field,” said Baumgarten. “Kellie Wierhold crossed ball and Avery [Jackson] was there, too. She hit it, then I hit it and it went in. It was a great feeling.”

Next up for Ramapo in the county tournament at least is Northern Highlands, the Raiders NBIL rival that has swept the regular season series between the two teams, in one of next Sunday’s semifinals.

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