Friday,
September 23, 2011
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Madison Holleran had two goals and two assists for Northern Highlands, which opened some eyes with a 6-2 win over Ramapo. |
ALLENDALE – Whenever Northern Highlands and Ramapo get together on the soccer pitch it always feels like there is a lot at stake. The rivals are probably the top two public school girls soccer programs in the State of New Jersey and neither can ever win a title – league, county or state – without going through the other. The final score is usually a 1-0, 2-1 type game and there have been penalty kicks involved on more than one occasion. It has been a long time since one has dominated the other.
That is why the final score of their latest matchup, their first meeting of the season on Thursday afternoon in Allendale, was so eye-popping...6-2 Highlanders and they earned every bit of it.
“We showed a lot of hustle today and we talked about how important it was going to be win every ball, 50/50s, the first ball, the second ball...every touch was going to be so important and we went after every one of them for 80 minutes,” said Northern Highlands head coach Tara Madigan. “We won those first balls, the second balls over and over and over again and that really helped us control the game.”
It's hard to spot a weakness in Highlands' starting 11, its depth or its style of play. The Highlanders move the ball on the ground as well as any team, their three levels work in synch with seamless transitions from back to middle to forward and they have a weapon that is unmatched in girls soccer anywhere in the state in Jackie Reyneke's long throw-ins.
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Devon Schulte scored Ramapo's first goal, a left-footed floater in the 57th minute. |
Not since Sam Lanzi, a 2007 graduate of Lakeland High School who perfected the flip-throw, has a player been so dangerous from the boundary. Reyneke can create scoring chances from anywhere inside midfield and forget trying to pin the Highlanders deep in their own end because she can throw them right out of trouble. At 6-foot-4, Reyneke can clear through balls out with her head on defense and she makes a nice target on corner kicks. Throw freshman striker Hana Kerner, who showed now fear in her first taste of the Highlands/Ramapo rivalry, into the mix and Highlands is dangerous from everywhere on the field.
“We lost to a far superior team today, a far superior team, and congratulations to Highlands for being ready to play today. We were not and, as the head coach, that is on me,” said Ramapo's Paul Heenehan. “The bottom line is we will improve and we will get better, but there was no doubt about it...we lost to a superior team today.”
Highlands had the better of it in the first half, but was in danger of walking off in a scoreless tie. One break, a ball that found its way through traffic, changed that. Less than one minute before the halftime whistle, Madison Holleran pounced on a mistake and put Highlands in the lead for good.
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Freshman Hana Kerner made her mark on the rivalry with two goals and an assist. |
“Hana [Kerner] crossed the ball in from the endline and the goalie had it in her hands. Somehow it went through and I just followed it in and shot it,” said Holleran.” We needed that goal. We were playing well, but we didn't have a lead. Then we put another one in right after that and we had the adrenalin rushing right as we went in for the half and we knew we could just keep going.”
It was just 12 seconds later and just four seconds before halftime that Highlands went up 2-0 as Holleran set up Carly Leipzig on the doorstep. Kerner joined the party just over eight minutes into the second half as she made a hard run up the right and skipped one through to make it 3-0 Highlands.
“Since the start of the season everyone has been talking about this game. This is the game that was marked on everyone's calendars. We knew coming out here that every one of us had to step it up and play up to our full potential. I think that is exactly what we did,” said Kerner, who showed no fear of contact. “I definitely had a lot of nerves because I was not sure how Ramapo was going to play, but once the game started the whole team just jumped right into it.”
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Jamie Barna assisted on both of Ramapo's goals. |
Ramapo jumped back into the game briefly midway through the second half. Jamie Barna controlled a throw in at the top of the box and, with a defender locked on her back, slid the ball over to Devon Schulte, who used her left foot to float a shot into the top left corner to get the Green Raiders back to within 3-1. Kerner helped Highlands (5-0) answer with another bull rush up the left and her cross rattled around inside the six before Clare Shea could finish it for a 4-1 lead with 20:23 to play.
Eighteen seconds later Barna got off a hard rip that Highlands keeper Brooke Holle (7 saves) did well to stop. She dove to make the initial save, but Amanda Baumgarten cleaned up the rebound to keep Ramapo hanging around at 4-2. The suspense, if there was any left, was lifted with 16:13 when Kerner was taken down in the box at the end of another push forward. Holleran converted the PK to make it a three-goal advantage and Kerner closed the scoring inside the final two minutes when she got her shoulder past the final defender and finished into the lower left.
The final score and the six goals scored will raise some eyebrows in Bergen County girls soccer circles. No one was more surprised than Holleran, who finished with two goals and two assists.
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Junior Jackie Reyneke has a unique set of skills that gives Highlands' multiple advantages. |
“I'm thrilled. I can't even believe it. I had a feeling we were going to win today because we had that motivating factor that Jessica [Abrams] wasn't here, but I never thought that we'd beat Ramapo 6-2. No Highlands team has ever done that,” said Holleran, making reference to starting sweeper Jessica Abrams, who is serving a suspension for picking up a disputed red card. “This is the best feeling ever. I didn't think this was going to happen, but we played our best and we did it for Jessica.”
It is often said that there are lessons to be learned from losses and Ramapo now has a source of motivation moving forward, but neither of those were consolations to Heenehan, whose team fell to 3-1 with the loss.
“[Former Georgetown basketball coach] John Thompson used to say that 'There is nothing that I can teach after losing that I could not have taught after winning,” said Heenehan. “Sure we are going to learn from this, of course we are going to learn from it. Are we going to be better the next time we play them? Absolutely we are going to be better, but like I just told Tara [Madigan], it is a whole lot better being on the other side of that score than the one we were on today.”
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