JJ Ruehlemann rocketing home his school record 40th goal of the season, the won that gave Waldwick a 2-1 win over Haddon Township in the Group 1 state final.
FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP – JJ Ruehlemann walked onto the pitch at Franklin High School for the Group 1 state final as one of the best players in the history of the Waldwick High School boys soccer program. He left a legend.
With his school record-tying 39th goal of the season, which came 10 minutes into the second half, Ruehlemann erased the one of deficit that Waldwick had been chasing since the opening minute of the game. Ruehlemann’s school record-breaking 40th goal of the season came with 1:38 left in regulation to push the Warriors past rival Haddon Township, 2-1, and to their second state championship in the last four years.
“Throughout the playoff run I kind of had [the goal-scoring record] in the back of my head, but I knew today that if something special happened, I would take it,” said Ruehlemann, who finished his career with 81 goals. “If it happened, it’s great, but I just want to win. I want to win for the team.”
That his two goals came amidst a dramatic victory in the state final on the last day of the 2024 season only adds another layer to the story.
“JJ was able to put that record aside. He told me one time that. ‘If I do set the record I hope it is in a big win. And it was in a big win,” said John Nochese, who now has two state championships in his 27 years as Waldwick’s head coach. “I am so proud that we brought back a title for Waldwick.”
A foul, a free kick and a flicked in header right from the jump put Waldwick on its back foot early against Haddon Township, its nemesis. The Red Hawks beat Waldwick in the 2022 state final and Joseph Sheehan’s goal just over one minute into the game had Haddon Township up 1-0.
Joseph Sheehan gave Haddon Township the lead just one minute into the game.
Playing from behind against a defense like the Red Hawks’ is not an enviable position to be in. Gabe Chatten, built more like a linebacker in football than a holding midfielder in futbol, and Jack McGarrigel took their turns bodying up Ruehlemann, whose motor has only one forward speed and no reverse. It was a game within the game and the defensive pairing plus its supporting cast was forcing Ruehlemann to take his first touches out wide or closer to the center stripe than he probably would have liked.
With about 10 minutes to go in the first half, however, Nochese moved another of his senior captains, Jake Carroll up top and the second striker gave Haddon Township (16-7-2) someone else to think about. Slowly but surely, Ruehlemann was moving in off the flanks and further toward the half-circle.
Even though it did not pay off in a first half goal as Haddon Township nursed its 1-0 lead through the intermission, Waldwick took over possession late in the first half and was a confident group coming out for half No. 2. The Warriors had been behind at the half in the playoffs before and have been using the ‘Us against everybody,’ motivational approach all season long.
It’s how a Group 1 school reached the Bergen County Tournament semifinals, how it had won its three previous state tournament games by a single goal and how planned to attack the second half.
“This team came from nowhere. Nobody thought we had it, but we knew we had it. We just had to get ourselves together and we have been on a heckuva run,” said Nochese. “We knew we still could win at halftime. We were very confident and then JJ does what JJ does.”
Isaac Vargas' perfectly placed corner kick led to Waldwick's first goal..
What JJ did was punish the Hawks for a mistake, a handball in the center of the park that gave the senior striker a free kick from about 25 yards out. Ruehlemann forced Haddon keeper Collin Feeley into one of his seven saves, but the rebound rolled over the end line for a corner kick that Isaac Vargas dropped right onto the foot of Ruehlemann, who tied the game and the school record for goals in a season with a half-hour still to play.
Waldwick (21-5-1) kept up the pressure with Carroll getting into the mix as much as he could. Playing with a painful stress fracture in his back for the entirety of his senior season, he was finally able to empty the tank in his last high school game.
“It’s been an amazing journey and the boys have been behind me every step of the way. I had everybody step up behind me when I needed it and it was an honor just to be a part of the team,” said Carroll, who Nochese called ‘The Heart and Soul,’ of the squad. “We needed to change things up today and I moved up to striker and pressed the [heck] out of them. This win means everything. It’s everything I worked for, everything we worked for as a team and it means a lot.”
Waldwick still needed to find that second goal and Ruehlemann had the stamina, the drive and the creativity to find it. The winning combination came from a lofted cross that he flicked over his own head into the space between Chatten and McGarrigel, who were never far away. Ruehlemann ran on to his own set up and used kind of a karate style front kick to blast home the last goal of a brilliant season.
For Ruehlemann, Carroll and goalkeeper Axel da Silva, the three captains, and 10 other seniors on the Waldwick roster, it was a perfect way to end their high school careers.
“This is the best possible way to close it out. It’s the best it could possibly be,” said da Silva, whose distribution was as an important a piece to Waldwick’s set up as his shot stopping. “With the start to the season that we had (5-4 through first nine games), nobody thought we would be here except us. It was a crazy season that ended just the way we wanted it to.”
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