Dylan Rosano scoring his third TD, the game-winner, in Ramapo's 35-28 win over Morris Knolls in the North 1, Group 4 state sectional final.

DENVILLE – The first half was a wash, nobody was stopping anyone. Through the first two quarters of the North 1, Group 4 state sectional final played in prime daylight conditions in Denville, Ramapo got the ball four times and scored four touchdowns. Morris Knolls had four possessions, scored three touchdowns and had the fourth one end with the second quarter clock after two plays.

One half, zero punts and the theme held well into half No. 2. Ramapo’s relentless tempo never gave Morris Knolls a breather and the Eagles’ triple option attack kept Ramapo guessing.

“It’s just something that you don’t see often. Props to them, they run the best triple option in the state 100 percent,” said Charlie Wingfield, Ramapo’s standout defensive end/tight end. “You can prepare for it all week, but when you come out in the game it is a completely different story.”

So the outcome would be decided by the slimmest of margins on one or two plays somewhere in the second half. Turned out that there were two of them and they were not hard to spot.

Having swapped touchdowns in the third quarter, Morris Knolls was on yet another march looking for a game-tying score for the fifth time, but the game’s lone turnover, a fumble, was recovered by Tyler Sorafine. That came with 6:51 left in the fourth quarter and marked the first time that a drive for either offense did not end with a touchdown.

Then, on the ensuing drive, Ramapo faced a fourth-and-1 from its own 41 and lined up in punt formation for the first time in the game. Probably assuming that the Raiders were going to go for it, Morris Knolls had the wrong personnel on the field and called a timeout, which gave Ramapo some extra time to weight its options,

Ramapo went for it, Liam Hayward picked up the first down and the Raiders were able to put the time squeeze on the Eagles, who final drive died on a turnover on downs deep in Ramapo territory.

Bobby Brikner and Morris Knolls' triple option gave the Ramapo defense fits all game long.

With its 35-28 victory on the road, Ramapo has completed one of the best in-season turnarounds in Bergen County history. The Raiders started 0-3 and are now winners of eight in a row and state sectional champions. They will play at Phillipsburg on Friday night in the Group 3 state semifinals.

“When you play the triple option, when you are up against a really well-coached team like we were today, it was just a matter of trying to get a couple more stops than they could,” said Nick Guttuso, a former long-time Ramapo assistant coach who is in his first-year at the helm of the storied program at his alma mater. “Our offense played really well today, our special teams were lights out and our defense came up huge when they needed to.”

The first half was a blur of rushing touchdowns except for the first one of the game which was a 12-yard strike from junior quarterback Casey Grusser to Salvatore Livoti, who kept his feet in bounds while diving across the sideline just inside the pylon. Wingfield, who does just about everything for the Raiders, kicked the first of his five extra points to make it 7-0 with 6:44 left in opening quarter.

Morris Knolls got first half rushing TDs from Bobby Brickner (5 yards) and quarterback Chris Kaiser (50 and 49 yards). Ramapo got its three first half scores on the ground from Hayward (2 yards) and Dylan Rosano (5 and 2 yards) as the Raiders took a 28-21 lead into the intermission.

The drive that resulted in Rosano’s second score was set up by a brilliant individual effort from Grusser on a third-and-15 from his own 15 yard line. A defender came in untouched and Grusser not only avoided him, but a host of others as he scrambled left with his head up, stopped to let another defender fly by and then hit Wingfield for a 23-yard gain that kept the drive alive.

Ramapo QB Casey Grusser scrambling out of trouble in a key 3rd-and-15 conversion in the second quarter.

“My first read wasn’t there and I saw the guy coming off the edge. I avoided him and started to look down field. Another guy came and I tried to avoid him to,” said Grusser. “I found Charlie and he made it a big gain. That was a big first down.”

There were not going to be seven full possessions to share in the second half. That became obvious when Morris Knolls used the first 7:05 of the third quarter to tie the game at 28 with a Kaiser 1-yard plunge.

Rosano’s third score of the game, a 1-yard hammer, put Ramapo back in front with 1:17 left in the third quarter and that was the final score of the game, even though there was plenty of drama left.

Morris Knolls’ next possession ended in the fumbled, followed by Ramapo’s decision to scrap the punt and go for it on 4th-and-1.

“I thought it was 4th-and-longer and they took the timeout. When I noticed that it was shorter we were probably going to take a timeout and go for it anyway,” said Guttuso. “It worked out for us, but that is all a credit to the O line. I asked them if they wanted to go for it, they said yes and I trust them.”

Even though the drive ended in a punt anyway, it lasted an extra three minutes before Wingfield’s eventual punt rode the wind into the end zone. That put Morris Knolls at its own 20 with 3:05 left in the game. Bricker ripped off a 60-yard jaunt on a 3rd-and-10 to move the Eagles from one 20-yard line to the other. Three plays later, MK faced a 4th-and-2 from the 12, but there was a pileup at the handoff exchange point and, the play never got in gear and the Ramapo defense held for the second time in the half to close things out.

Ramapo is a state sectional champ for the second straight year and is now one win away from making it back to the state final round that it reached last season. Next up is Phillipsburg in Phillipsburg, one of the state’s great football venues.

“It’s going to be a great environment and we are going up against a storied program,” said Guttuso, whose team’s first game scrimmage way back in the summer was against Phillipsburg. “We are going to get right back to work. We are looking forward to it.”

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