Freshman Savanna Edwards allowed just one run over 5 1/3 innings of relief to allow Ramapo the time it needed to comeback for a 6-5 win over Old Tappan in the Bergen County Tournament quarterfinals.
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – So, what was Savanna Edwards expecting from her freshman year as member of the Ramapo softball team?
“I was just hoping to play some and have fun,” said Edwards. “I definitely didn’t expect it to be anything like this.”
Like what you ask? Like entering the game in relief down 4-1 in the bottom of the second inning against a powerful offense like Northern Valley/Old Tappan’s in a single elimination county tournament game, this one being Saturday’s quarterfinal played on the turf at Immaculate Heart Academy.
So how did she do? Edwards, a left-hander, threw 5 1/3 innings and gave up just one run, which gave her team’s bats the chance to dig the Green Raiders out of a pretty big hole.
A four-run fourth inning turned it around for Ramapo, which rallied for a 6-5 victory that lands the fifth-seeded Raiders in the Bergen County semifinals against top-seeded IHA. No. 2 Ramsey and No. 6 Ridgefield Park were the other two winners that advanced to the Final 4 to be played next Saturday at the Wood-Ridge Athletic Center.
Ramapo also picked up some milestones along the way as senior shortstop LeeAnn Downey’s fifth inning single was the 150th hit of her career and the win was the 1,000th in the career of head coach Darren White when all of them across multiple sports are tallied. White has coached softball at Saddle Brook and Ramapo, football at Saddle Brook and girls hoops at both Saddle Brook and Indian Hills.
Old Tappan freshman Grace McManus flying home after her 3-run homer in the bottom of the second inning.
“It's great to get this win and I am very happy with the way the freshman came in and threw the ball. It was not an easy situation,” said White, whose team opened the season with a 6-5 loss to Old Tappan before winning the rematch by the same score. “We lost to them the first time 6-5 and this game could have gone either way just like that game could have gone either way. We are evenly matched, they are well-coached and we knew we were in for another battle with them.”
The real shot fired in this iteration came in the bottom of the second inning. Ramapo had taken the lead with an unearned run courtesy of a two-out single by No. 9 hitter Dani Ruby, but Old Tappan matched that and then some in the bottom of the frame.
When a freshman is batting in the No. 9 hole, the stereotype is that the expectations are low. Work a walk, get down a bunt, move a runner, anything to help set the table for the top of the order would be a plus. Not Grace McManus, the freshman who occupies the last spot in the Golden Knights’ lineup. She digs in and does not get cheated. Her first at bat came with one out and with Amelie Cardenas (2-for-4, R, SB) and Leona Sasaki (1-for-3, R, RBI) on base. McManus then hit a bomb to left field that got up in the wind and carried well over the leftfield fence for a 3-run homer that put Old Tappan in front, 4-1.
Edwards entered the game to face the next batter and stabilized the game. She wriggled out of further trouble in the second, limited the damage in the third inning to single run and then worked four straight scoreless innings to facilitate the comeback.
Sofia Ciarlo drove in two runs for Ramapo, which will play top-seeded IHA in the semifinals.
Therese Adams drew a bases loaded walk, Sofia Ciarlo delivered a two-run single and Sam Cinqegrana pushed home a run with a fielder’s choice in the top of the third inning to put Ramapo up, temporarily, 5-4.
“I went up there thinking that ‘I am going to smash this ball.’ My confidence up there was through the roof. I knew I was going to hit the ball and get on base,” said Ciarlo, the Raiders’ catcher. “We stayed confident the entire time and our energy in the dugout is what keeps us going.”
Old Tappan tied it in the bottom of the third, but Edwards allowed nothing thereafter. She worked around a leadoff double by Mia Ferraro in the fourth by getting the Knights to hit the ball at first baseman Grace Saxton. Two pop-ups and a groundball ended that threat, she left Sasaki on first after a one-out single in the fifth and she stranded two more runners on base in the sixth, both in scoring position, when Downey charged and threw on the run for the final out. Edwards worked a 1-2-3 seventh to close it out.
“We knew going into this game that Old Tappan is absolutely an amazing team. No matter what happened in the past, we had to go out there and play our game,” said Downey, who will play next season at Iona University. “We stuck together, we kept the bats going and defensively we made a couple of errors but we made up for them with big plays after. My goal since I was a freshman was to win a county championship and if we keep playing how we have been playing we have a good chance.”
Every spot in the Ramapo lineup had at least one hit with Emily McCarthy (2-for-4, R,SB) and Saxton (2-for-4, R) finishing with multi-hit games. Downey (1-for-4, SB), Virginia DelBuono (1-for-4), Cadie Sauder (1-for-4, 2R), Adams (1-for-3, 2 R, 2 RBI), Ciarlo (1-for-3, 2 RBI, BB), Cinqegrana (1-for-4) and Rubi (1-for-4, RBI) all reached safely at least once.
Now it is on to the semifinals where the yearly battle against IHA awaits.
“The only team that we have lost to in the counties since I have been at Ramapo is [IHA],” said White, last win against IHA in the county tournament came in the 2021 semifinals before beating Mahwah in the championship game. “We lost in 2022 to them in the final, in ’23 we gave up two in the last inning and they beat us in the quarters and last year we lost to them in the final. They are the only team to beat us in the counties the last few years and there is no shame there. You know to win county title you always know you have to go through them.”
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