Tuesday,
November 12, 2013
By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer
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Casey Richards scored early and Highlands added a bunch more late as it pulled away for a 5-0 win over Mahwah in the North 1, Group 3 state sectional semifinals on Monday. |
ALLENDALE – Throughout this season, the game plan for the Northern Highlands girls soccer team has been to score early, often, and simply decimate the opposition before they even get a chance to even get going. It has worked to perfection all season and looked to be the case again in Monday’s North 1, Group 3 semifinals when Casey Richards scored early. Coming off an upset win over Ramapo, Mahwah was not about to go down without a fight and kept it a one-goal game well into the second half. However, the Highlanders just kept coming in waves before finally breaking through in a big way to put the game away.
Eva Hurm and Maddie Heaney scored 47 seconds apart midway through the second half as second-seeded Northern Highlands moved one step closer to defending its North 1, Group 3 title by scoring four times over the final 20 minutes for a 5-0 victory over No. 6 seed Mahwah at in Allendale.
“We beat them in the county tournament, but it’s always different when you play in the states because one loss and the season is over,” said Richards.
Richards got the Highlanders off to a good start when she created space near the corner of the box along the left wing and bent a shot past diving Mahwah goalie Emily Santos and into the upper right-hand corner to make it 1-0 just 6:59 into the game.
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Emily Santos made 12 saves for Mahwah, which finished the season at 14-6-1. |
“From where I was, it was really the only place I could shoot it so I went for it,” said Richards on the game’s first goal. “Scoring first is always important and scoring early too. We know Mahwah is a physical team and they frustrated Ramapo to set the tone when they upset them. We’re banged up right now, but we have a lot of depth and we had to come out strong. Our team always wants to set the tone. Scoring first and scoring quickly is the best way to do that.”
Northern Highlands had two chances to pad that lead, but Clare Shea and Hurm both hit shots off the post as the Thunderbirds survived the first half only down a goal.
The score was still 1-0 well into the second half with Santos making a trio of fantastic saves to keep it a one-goal game. But they could only hold off the Highlanders for so long. Hurm snuck in behind the defense and ran onto a perfect through ball from Shea for a breakaway goal. Less than a minute later, Heaney beat a defender and cut back towards the middle of the box before blasting a shot home to put to rest any hopes of a comeback and clinch a berth in the North 1, Group 3 section final.
“After they scored those two goals that was pretty much it. You don’t come back from three goals down against a team like that,” said Mahwah head coach Courtney Carrelha. “They had too much team speed and fresh legs coming in all the time for us to handle. You have to mark perfectly against them just to stay in it. I thought we did a amazing job in getting this far and holding them to one goal for 60 minutes, but once we started to run out of gas and they kept coming at us, we had a hard time stopping it.”
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Madeline Heaney netted a late goal for Highlands, which will play River Dell in the section final. |
Claire Nam also netted a goal and Chelsea DiNapoli capped the scoring for Northern Highlands (20-0-1) off of a pretty backheel pass from Richards.
Santos finished with 12 saves for Mahwah, which finished the season with a 14-6-1 record. All six of the T-Birds’ losses and their one tie came against teams that are playing in a section final on Thursday (twice against Northern Highlands and Ramsey, River Dell, West Morris Central, and a tie against Ramsey).
Northern Highlands has been banged up for several weeks now but finally caught a break yesterday. River Dell upset top-seeded Wayne Hills, 1-0, in the other section semifinal which means that the Highlanders will play at home in an attempt to win their third straight section title.
“I thought we came out strong, but we didn’t execute in the opportunities we had in the first half after scoring our first goal,” said Northern Highlands’ head coach Tara Madigan. “We talked at halftime about executing and coming out with a sense of urgency to do that.”
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