Tuesday,
September 29, 2015
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Peter Kim (left) led two counterattacks that led to the two goals that Fort Lee used to beat Ramsey, 2-0, in a battle of unbeaten teams on Monday afternoon. |
FORT LEE -- The Bergen County Boys Soccer Tournament is still two weeks away, but when it does finally get here it is going to look a lot like Monday’s game between Fort Lee and Ramsey. Fort Lee is a program on the upswing looking to extend its success further than what it has already established inside of its league. Ramsey, a defending state sectional champion, is a program that has nothing to prove as it is already recognized as one of Bergen County’s top public school sides.
Both were undefeated when they met on the turf behind the Fort Lee Middle School and, despite all of the good work done through open play by both teams, it was the results of four restarts that made the difference and all four of them went in favor of Fort Lee.
Ramsey had two goals disallowed by offsides calls on direct kicks taken from 40 yards out and on two others the Rams put the ball in the air too close to Fort Lee keeper Mohamed Abdelhamid, which set off a predictable chain of events.
Once in the first half and once in the second, Abdelhamid picked off a ball in the air, raced to the top of the box, punted it straight down Route 1 and watched as Peter Kim and Justin Picache worked their magic on the counter attack. The result of each was bookend goals that gave Fort Lee a county tournament resume-building 2-0 victory.
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Declan Rybacki scored one of the two goals that Ramsey had disallowed by offsides calls. |
“To get where we want to be as a program we needed to get the victory against a team like this, against a team like Ramsey. It was not going to be enough to just play well,” said Fort Lee head coach Demba Mane. “We needed to make our mark. It was a moment for us to capitalize on and that is where our focus was. The tenacity had to be there for us today. I could live with a missed pass here or a missed tackle there, but the effort had to be there and it was against a very good Ramsey team that you know is going to test you in every way.”
The game was end to end from the outset as neither team was interested in trading space for numbers in the back. There was room to run in the midfield and pressure on defenders on the flanks. The game was scoreless through the first 35 minutes but never had the look of a 0-0 draw.
Fort Lee almost punched one in when Kim, played in by a Nick Garita pass, was in deep on the right. Ramsey keeper Braden Miller went low and got an elbow on the shot to slow its roll and Ryan Vatcher then cleared it off the line 13 minutes in.
In the 24th minute Ramsey looked it had finally broken through. Sam Berman lined up a free kick from just inside the midfield stripe and dropped it into the thimble just inside the 18 where it bounced in the middle off traffic. Brian Miller came out of the pack with the ball and finished into the open net, but was ruled to have come from an offsides position and the goal was waved off.
Instead, it was Fort Lee that got on the board first when Abdelhamid picked off a long throw in the area and quickly launched a put down the middle of the field and toward Kim, who gave chase while running shoulder to shoulder with a defender. Kim got there first, angled to his right and then hit a rocket that clanged off the framework where the crossbar meets the right post. Picache, following the play, was right there to head home the goal that gave the Bridgemen the 1-0 lead they took into halftime.
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In addition to anchoring the defense, Fort Lee keeper Mohamed Abdelhamid got the offense started with two punts. |
“It was off a punt from Mo right down the middle and Peter Kim got there and took it out wide. He hit a rocket and got unlucky that it hit the crossbar, but I was ready to put it right back in,” said Picache, a striker with a tremendous work rate. “We came out here to defend our home field. We have not lost here in almost two years and we take pride in defending our home field here in Fort Lee and getting the first goal was huge.”
Between the first goal and the next one there were plenty of chances both ways. Ramsey’s Zach Rausch ran on to a ball of opportunity just inside the 18 and hit a rip that Abdelhamid did well to handle at eye level two minutes before the intermission.
Braden Miller made a nice stop off a Picache effort that came at the end of a 40 yard dash 13 minutes into the second half and in the final 20 minutes the pot really started to boil. Four yellow cards were given out in a four minute span and that was even before Ramsey had its second goal disallowed. With just over eight minutes to play Sam Berman lined up a free kick from near the left touchline 10 yards into the offensive half and lofted the ball into the mixer at the top of the box. Declan Rybacki, positioned behind the scrum, got his head on the second ball and it went in. Again, the flag was up and the Rams were denied the equalizer.
Fort Lee missed a sitter in front of goal with six minutes left, but finally added the insurance it was looking for just under five minutes from time. With Ramsey pushing numbers forward in search of the tying goal, all of the Rams were inside the offensive half when Abdelhamid picked off a corner kick and started the well-rehearsed drill of driving a punt up the middle of the field for Kim, who was joined by Picache for yet another 100-yard sprint.
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Sam Berman hit the restart that led to Ramsey's second disallowed goal. |
Kim drove the left side, drew a defense weary from the chase and dropped a pass back for Picache, who calmly chose the lower left to make it 2-0.
“We were right there. We made two mistakes that they capitalized on and we had two [goals] taken away. I told my guys that they had to find another way. They weren’t going to let us score on something in the box and we did not shoot very well,” said Ramsey head coach Jaime Phillips, whose team fell to 4-1-1 on the season. “It’s a tough loss, no doubt, but we have a good team here, a deep team and anybody and everybody can play. We’ll learn from this and we’ll get back to work looking for ways to put the ball in the back of the net.”
Both teams will be dangerous in the Bergen County Tournament, which looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. The clear-cut favorite heading into this week’s action, Ramapo, took its first loss of the season, 5-2, against Old Tappan on Monday night and Bergen Catholic topped rival Don Bosco Prep, 1-0, on Monday afternoon.
Those might be the big boys, but there is room left for a solid side from a less heralded league to make a deep run. Fort Lee has plans to do just that.
“We have to stay humble and keep working, we know that, but a league title, a county championship and a state championship…that is what we are aiming for,” said Abdelhamid, a senior who is now in his third season as Fort Lee’s starting keeper. “We’d like to go undefeated. It would be great to do things that have never been accomplished in school history before and we will just keep working towards doing things that have never been accomplished.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: Fort Lee's Wesley Jang played well in the game but was not mentioned in this article because he is an Arsenal fan and took issue with a certain reporter's Tottenham sweatshirt. COYS!
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