Kendall Reid scored Ramsey's goal in a 1-1 tie against Ramapo that led to a split Bergen County championship for 2024.
ORADELL – Some quick Bergen County Girls Soccer Tournament trivia. How many county championships have Ramapo and Ramsey, two perennially strong programs, won in the new millennium?
WARNING: The perception differs from the reality.
Ramapo won 12 county championships under legendary head coach Paul Heenehan, who led the program from its inception through the 2016 season, but the last of those came in 2003. The program’s 13th title came under Sarah Francini in 2019. It’s a surprising trip through the archives to find that the Green Raiders, who seem to always make deep runs, have only hoisted the trophy twice since the turn of the century.
Ramsey, a Group 2 powerhouse that has had sustained success in the state playoffs, is this year’s top seed and has been so close so many times in the county tournament. It takes a blueblood to dispatch of Ramsey as its county tournament losses in the last three years have come against IHA, Ridgewood and Northern Highlands. The Rams always seem to punch above their weight, but they have not won a county title since 1991 when they shared the championship with Ramapo.
So it was that the wait for both of these programs came to an end on Saturday afternoon at River Dell High School.
Ramsey got a goal from Kendall Reid in the first half and Ramapo got an equalizer from Grace Saxton after the intermission. Two overtime periods passed with some excitement, but no goals in a 100-minute, 1-1 stalemate that made both sides county champions. There is no penalty kick shootout in the county final.
Junior Grace Saxton scored Ramapo's goal.
“I feel great and I am proud of the girls. Two great teams, an interesting outcome and both teams deserved it, they really did so it was a good way for it to end,” said Ramsey head coach Drew Strohmeyer. “In 1991 [Ramsey] was co-champs with Ramapo. It’s deja vue all over again.”
It was a similar sentiment on the other bench.
“Personally, I am thrilled. I totally understand that it might feel anticlimactic and I understand that, as a player, you want a win and that a tie does not feel like much, but I told them that these opportunities don’t always come. Great teams don’t always make it to a county final and you can work as hard as you can all year long and not get here,” said Ramapo head coach Maddie Gibbs, a Ramapo alum, former player and an assistant coach on the Raiders’ 2019 championship team. “This is my first county championship as a head coach and a win is a win in my eyes even if we have to split the trophy.”
Ramapo’s only loss of the season was a 1-0 setback against Ramsey back on September 12 and Ramapo (14-1-1) is the only team to hold undefeated Ramsey (19-0-1) to less than two goals in a game. Evenly matched coming in, they went out exactly the same way.
“I have never been a fan of PKs, so I am happy that it did not come down to that. If we were to lose [in PKs] I would have felt like we didn’t deserve that,” said Sophia Dallara, a William & Mary commit and one of Ramsey’s three senior captains. “There were a lot of chances for them as well as us. Obviously there is a little bit of disappointment in the fact that you think about what could have been, but tying; we still got the trophy and we are still undefeated. Overall, it was good for us.”
Grace Tateossian assisted on Ramsey's goal..
It was great for Ramsey in the 23rd minute when its pressure on the goal paid off. Hope Ernst’s charge up the right side drew a couple of defenders and left a lane for a drop pass to Kendall Reid, who banged one off the framework. Instead of a sulking, Reid got right back into position as the ball bounced back out to Grace Tateossian, who was ambling up in support. Tateossian sent the ball back into the fray and Reid turned it home to give Ramsey the 1-0 lead that it carried into halftime.
Just over seven minutes into the second half, Ramapo found itself at a crossroads. Amelia Ruebenacker was on the ground, injured in chase for a 50/50 ball with Ramsey’s Emily Bender and it could have been a deflating situation as she was taken off the field.
It took just 14 seconds to change that line of thinking. A drop ball and a Mary Grusser sprint up the side led to a positive result.
“It was a drop kick and Bridget [Cannon] played it up to me. I saw a gap between two people, I took it to the endline and I cut it back for Grace [Saxton],” said Grusser, who scored the game-winner in the semifinals last weekend. “She did the rest.”
Saxton, a three sport athlete including basketball, pinned her defender on her back like she was boxing out and then turned home Grusser’s assist to tie the game with 32:17 left in regulation.
“I saw Mary dribbling down and she is insanely fast and when she got going I knew I had to get in position. I kind of cut in front of my defender, Mary played the perfect ball to me and I just kind of tapped it in,” said Saxton. “No matter what happened during the game, we knew we just had to keep fighting and I was super happy with the way we responded to that first goal. We didn’t let down.”
Mary Grusser assisted on Ramapo's goal.
There were many chances both ways over the final 50 minutes. Ernst’s ability to control the ball in tight spaces and then accelerate through traffic created problems for Ramapo all game long and she nearly put the Rams back in front in the 57th minute. She ran onto a bouncing ball and laced a rip of opportunity on target only to see Ramapo keeper Annie Landers make her best save of the game as she palm-pushed the ball up and over the crossbar.
Cannon had Ramapo’s last best chance of overtime when she forced Ramsey keeper Bella Baldino up to the corner for a confident save.
There were two equally dangerous chances in the first overtime. Landers made a diving save on an Ernst’s volley 6:25 in and with 1:15 to go, Saxton’s header of Grusser’s free kick hit the framework where the crossbar meets the post and bounced out.
It was back and forth in the second overtime, too, but in the end both teams added to their trophy cases and walked off with smiles to get ready for the upcoming state sectional tournament. Ramapo is the top seed in North 1, Group 3 and will open against No. 16 Fort Lee on Monday in Franklin Lakes. Ramsey is the No. 1 seed in North 1, Group 2 and will host Elmwood Park in Round 1.
“It’s amazing and it being our senior year [the county title] is like a cherry on top,” said Ramsey’s Maddie Landel. “To have this ending [to this tournament] feels really great. I am just really proud of everyone on the team and we are looking forward to the states.”
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