Tuesday, November 10, 2009

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Megan Lannigan's goal eight minutes in gave Paramus the lead for good in a 3-0 win over N/V Demarest that landed the Spartans in the section final for the first time in the program's history.

PARAMUS – From a storyline standpoint, Monday’s North 1, Group 3 state sectional girls soccer semifinal was a no lose situation. A Paramus win would mark the first time in the program’s history that the Spartans would reach the section final, an accomplishment that has been a long time coming for long-time head coach Vic DePasquale. While on the other side, Demarest was playing to keep what has already been by far and away the best season in the history of its girls soccer program going.

“I went over to [Demarest head coach] Brandon Silva before the game and congratulated him for the season his team has had. He’s done a great job with his team,” said DePasquale. “For me, it just feels great to still be playing this late in November. It’s fun.”

When the two coaches next exchanged handshakes, it was at the end of Paramus’ 3-0 win that sends the Spartans on to the section final for the first time where it will take on top-seeded Northern Highlands, which eliminated Ramapo in penalty kicks in the other semifinal.

“This is the furthest we have ever gone as a program. We’ve never been to the section final and the last time we made it to the semis was either ’99 or 2000 and we lost to Ramapo in PKs,” said DePasquale, whose sixth-seeded team upset No. 3 Wayne Hills in the quarterfinals. “It was a goal of ours at the beginning of the year to make it to the finals. When we saw the bracket I told the girls that if we just played our game, the road was laid out for us to get there as long as we didn’t take a wrong turn. We didn’t take a wrong turn and it is a feather in our cap that we are there now.”

Megan Gadaleta played well in net against Paramus and throughout Demarest's best-ever season.

Paramus also ended Demarest’s County Tournament run earlier this season with a 3-0 win in the Round of 16 and the Spartans were confident coming in. That confidence only grew when they took a 1-0 lead just eight minutes into the game.

Megan Lannigan stayed onside as she tracked down a through ball played up from the back by Noelle Mattesich and won the race with the goal keeper near the top of the box and chipped home the game’s first goal.

“I’ve been working hard on keeping myself onside. I saw the ball going over their heads, I ran onto it. The goalie came out and I was able to one-time it over her head and into the net,” said Lannigan. “Coach [DePasquale] has said that this is the most skilled team that he has had ever for Paramus and we are confident with our play.”

Paramus bumped it lead to 2-0 by halftime and did so off a throw-in in the 16th minute. Lauren Fiorino threw the ball in from the left side and it skipped through traffic and took one mid-sized bounce. Kelly Cullinane was running in behind the play and her swing volley hit the back of the net.

“We looked a little tired and maybe a little nervous because of the 3-0 loss the first time we played them. We tried to pump them up over the last 48 hours and get them ready for that offside trap that they run, but we just didn’t seem to have it,” said Silva. “When you talk about the game there are 11 1-v-1 situations and they were better in those situations than we were today. We have a lot of young players, at some points we had four freshmen (Lauren Malajian, Raquel Molina, Kali Kokounas and Liz Wilson) on the field at one time today, and we had lot of players out there gaining experience in this type of game.”

Kristina Meier (left) assisted on Paramus' third goal, while Demarest freshman Lauren Malajian gained valuable postseason experience.

Paramus used another throw-in to cap the scoring midway through the second half. Fiorino again placed the restart in a dangerous spot and Kristina Meier was there to flick it through to junior Stephanie Hallihan, who knocked it home to give the Spartans their final goal.

“Lately we have been doing better with cross plays from the corner and we have been working on getting a header off the throws that Lauren [Fiorino] takes. Coach keeps telling me ‘Back post, back post,’ and that is where I got the goal,” said Hallihan. “The third goal is always the charm for us. If we get a third goal we win, that is the way it has been since the beginning of the season.”

The beginning of the season is a long time ago now and Paramus is in select company at this late date. It is one win away from the program’s first ever sectional title, but standing in the way is Northern Highlands, the top seed and Bergen County finalist whose only loss of the season came in overtime against IHA.

“We are going to have to play our best and more against Highlands, but at least we have the opportunity to play that game. If we would have lost this game we would have lost that opportunity and we would never have known how we stack up against a team like Highlands,” said DePasquale, who is in is 19th season as Paramus’ head coach. “Now we are there, we have two days to heal up and get ready for what will hopefully be a good match on Thursday. And I really am happy to have two more practices, which we have never had this late in the season.”

Kelly Cullinane scored the second goal for Paramus, which will take on top-seeded Northern Highlands in Thursday state sectional final.

There are no more practices left for Demarest, but there is a new standard in place for the Norsewomen, who finished 3-13 last season and had never won more then 6 games in any one season leading up to this one. The 2009 campaign was a season full of first for Demarest going back to the third game when it beat Ramapo for the first time ever and then continued with its first-ever trip to the Bergen County Tournament, its first-ever county tournament win, it first-ever state playoff berth and then its first two state tournament wins, upsets of Old Tappan and

Demarest finished the season at 10-10-1 and has put in place the building blocks to sustain the success that finally came to light this season.

“We exceeded our own expectations. We talked about what we wanted to achieve and then we overachieved. In the 11 years that I have been coaching this is the best season I have ever had, not in record, but as far as perseverance and dedication and commitment and family and all of the wonderful things that we tried create in our program to change the culture,” said Silva. “The kids are starting to buy into it and things are starting to change. We are just starting to get more girls to play club soccer. We have fix or six players on this team that just started playing soccer freshman year, so it has been a lot of time, a lot of hard work and a lot of teaching and I I hope that this season was just the start of a lot of good things to come.”

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