Monday, October 26, 2015

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

IHA keeper Kimberly Mains making a save in the penatly kick shootout that decided IHA's 1-1 (3-2 PKs) victory over Ramapo in the Bergen County semis.

ORADELL – When two teams are similar in athletic ability, when both stick to their game plans with no costly mistakes that lead to a fluky goal and when both hustle for the full duration of the game, it is the perfect recipe for a penalty kick shootout. Immaculate Heart Academy was composed enough and Ramapo sufficiently disruptive to force the shootout to determine which team would get the chance to play for a county championship next weekend.

After 100 minutes of even play and one goal for each side, the Bergen County Tournament semifinal being played on the turf behind River Dell High School headed for PKs and IHA goal keeper Kimberly Mains probably should have been a little bit nervous…right?

“Not really. I am a goalie so there is no pressure on me. The pressure is all on the shooter,” said Mains. “They get a free shot and it really is not my job to make saves. They are supposed to go in so I just try to make it a little harder for them.”

Mains was sufficiently humble, but her job was a bit more important than she let on. So important in fact that when she saved two straight penalty kicks against Ramapo’s third and fourth shooters, she put her team right on the cusp of the county final. When Ramapo’s final shooter missed the frame all together, IHA gathered to celebrate a 1-1 (3-2 PKs) victory.

Ramapo keeper Lizzy Stellakis made this quality save in the first overtime and another in the penalty kick shootout.

IHA and top-seeded Northern Highlands, a 4-0 winner over Ridgewood in Sunday’s second semifinal, will meet next weekend in the county final for the fourth straight year. Highlands won in 2012, there was a shared championship in 2013 and IHA won last year’s final, 2-1, ending Highlands’ 88-game unbeaten streak in the process. The Highlanders have not lost since and are currently ranked No. 1 in the nation by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

But to get there, IHA first had to get past a Ramapo team that was intent on not letting the Blue Eagles settle into their precise passing and possession game. The Green Raiders stepped hard and tried to blow everything up.

So instead of pinging the ball around and connecting multiple passes in a coordinated dance up the field, IHA used a split second of well-timed brilliance to take the lead, netting the game’s first goal in the 67th minute.

As the Ramapo defense was raising its defensive line just as IHA’s Shannon Burns gained possession in the midfield, Julianna Shrekgast was running against the reversing tide. Burns played the ball up in the air, Shrekgast stayed onside by less than a step and found herself in on Ramapo keeper Lizzy Stellakis in a 1-v-1 situation.

Julianna Shrekgast had IHA's goal in regulation, a cracker in the 67th minute.

Stellakis raced out to close the space, but there was little she could do as Shrekgast crushed her shot into the upper right to give IHA the 1-0 lead.

“Ramapo plays a very high defense and they push up right when they clear the ball. It was happening the whole game and I know Shannon [Burns], she was just going to hit it because as they step up the space grows behind,” said Shrekgast, a junior striker. “Right when I saw her foot about to kick it, I stepped on-sides. I knew I had a girl behind me, but I didn’t let it bother me. I didn’t even see the goalie, I just focused on my shot and it went in.”

After working so hard to take the lead, IHA held it for all of five minutes and 10 second as Ramapo scraped together the equalizer off a couple of restarts and some hard work in the box. Monica Scaglione sent a free kick from the left side and just inside the offensive half landed in a tangle of feet in the area. There was a scramble and Nikki Butler got a toe on the ball, which finished just wide of the near post after taking a deflection.

Sommer Cochran took the corner kick and that bounced around, too. The ball spit back out to Cochran, who followed the play in and she hit a half-volley back across goal and inside the opposite post with 8:10 left in regulation.
Burns just flew the crossbar inside the final five minutes before the game headed into the first overtime, which was mostly one-way traffic toward the Ramapo net. IHA had two consecutive corner kicks midway through, but Stellakis was up for it. On the second attempt, Stellakis came off her line to take the ball off the head of an attacker, then controlled the ricochet in traffic near her goal line.

Ramapo's Sommer Cochran had the regualtion equalizer in the 72nd minute.

Ramapo had the best chance of the second overtime when Sarah Scire was taken down on a run up the left, a professional foul that produced the game’s lone yellow card. That gave the Raiders a free kick from 25 yards out on the left, but Mains made a steady save.

Then it was time for PKs with Ramapo shooting first. Scire made hers to start the festivities and Burns followed suit for IHA. Ramapo actually took the advantage in the second round when Olivia Kraebel converted and Stellakis dove to her right to keep out IHA’s second attempt, but Mains knocked away the next two to make Ramapo’s fifth round chance a do-or-die. That shot flew the bar and it was IHA that grabbed the spot in the county final.

“I am very, very disappointed with the result, but I absolutely couldn’t be prouder of my team for their effort. I thought we were prepared, I thought we bought in to everything we were trying to do and I thought the kids executed,” said Ramapo head coach Paul Heenehan. “We were working to put one in the next the whole way. We were not playing to get to a PK, but when you get there, you never know what is going to happen. I thought our keeper made a great play on every ball and yet it finished the way it did.”

And when it was over, IHA (14-3), which has not lost to an in-state team this season, could start to think about Northern Highlands. There was a regular season game between the two powerhouses scheduled for Thursday night, but that will likely be scrapped in favor of seeing how it all plays out with a trophy on the line.

“It’s going to be a tough one, definitely. They are having a great season, but we feel like we are having a great season, too. We are definitely motivated,” said Shrekgast. “We are going to train hard this week. We are going to mentally and physically and we will be ready.”

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