The tournament director of the Bergen County Boys Soccer Tournament called this morning with a minor change in the schedule for the tournament. Westwood and Waldwick basically change places in Friday's play-in games.
Westwood will now play Park Ridge at Ramapo at 5:15 Friday with the winner facing No. 3 Bergen Catholic in Sunday's first round. Waldwick will face New Milford at Waldwick at 6 p.m. Friday with the winner facing No. 2 Cliffside Park.
The seeds and schedule for the Bergen County Boys Soccer Tournament are out and unbeaten Don Bosco got the top seed.
Defending Group 2 State co-champion Cliffside Park took the second seed, followed by Bergen Catholic and Ramsey. All are unbeaten although Bergen Catholic has a 1-1 tie with Clifton.
Well, you knew this was inevitable. All it takes is a weekend like this and you can all but guarantee that there will be some hooting and hollering about the public/non-public issue in football.
It begins in Wayne, where the Patriots of Wayne Hills saw their 55-game unbeaten streak end at the hands of St. Joseph Regional, 17-15. It was the second longest active winning streak in the country behind the 71-game run of Smith Center in Kansas.
When your last .500 season goes back to 2002 and your last winning record was in 2000, winning close games is no guarantee. Bergenfield is a classic example, a team that was winless last season and is still a very young team this season.
For many of the Bears, just playing is a new experience, so when they were sitting on a lead late in the fourth quarter against Indian Hills, the game was anything but over. When they fumbled at the Braves' 8-yard line with 1:46 left, you could sense the "here we go again" coming.
Ironically, I spent a few hours of my Thursday evening sitting outside the principal's office at Ramapo High School. No, it wasn't detention. The seeding meeting for the Bergen County girls soccer tournament was going on down the hall in the cafeteria.
There certainly were a few surprises, but the field is set and some intriguing matchups are slated for the first round. For the first time maybe ever, there was no clear No. 1 seed because of IHA's loss to Ridgewood nearly two weeks ago. In fact, I said to Ramapo coach and tournament director Paul Heenehan before the meeting that the only seed I knew would happen was Mahwah at No. 4. That was because IHA, Ridgewood and Northern Highlands all had a legitimate claim to the top spot.
OK, so what do Billy Joel, David Bowie and the Ramapo girls soccer team have in common? On Thursday at 4 PM, it will be pressure. Joel and Bowie have sung about it. The Ramapo girls will have to deal with it.
The Green Raiders are in a situation where they have to defeat Indian Hills to earn a spot in the Bergen County tournament. If Ramapo loses or even ties, the team won't have the necessary .500 winning percentage to qualify for the tournament. The seeding meeting will take place at Ramapo High School not long after the game against Indian Hills is done, a mere few hundred feet away from the field where Ramapo's fate will be decided.
I made sure to thank Tara Schwitter after the IHA senior scored two goals on Friday in IHA's 2-0 victory over Clifton, sparing me the ignominy of writing a third consecutive 0-0 game. Schwitter looked puzzled when I said "Thank you for scoring," which leads me to believe she's not spending nearly enough time reading soccer blogs. Also had the pleasure of meeting her Dad after the game. He was very complimentary, which is always good to hear.
Anyway, I am showing that I am a man of my word. I said I would blog about whoever scored, so here it is. The title for this entry is a direct rip-off of the Matteau!!! Matteau!!! Matteau!!! goal call from when the Rangers went on to win the Stanley Cup. And, no, I'm not a Rangers fan. But I was pretty happy that someone finally scored at a game I was covering. It took approximately 247 minutes. Whew.
If there was ever a team that was desperate for a win, it was Paramus Catholic. Coming off of that heartbreaking loss to St. Joseph last week and heading into a bye next week, the prospect of being 0-3 and seeing the season slipping away would have been disastrous.
When Northern Highlands left them a short field after a shanked punt, the Paladins jumped on the chance. Getting the early 7-0 lead sent them on the way, and when the Highlanders gave them two more scores with mistakes, PC had its requisite victory.
I had the opportunity to escape from realignment HE-double hockey sticks for a day to see one of the most entertaining ties you're going to see in boys soccer Friday.
Clifton and Bergen Catholic, both unbeaten, played to a 1-1 tie in Oradell. Clifton's Victor Manosalvas wowed the Clifton fans with a gorgeous direct kick from the left sideline about 35 yards out off the far post and in for the Mustangs' goal, and junior Danny Pinto gave the home fans something to smile about by burying a header off a Marcelo Escudero kick with less than four minutes left in regulation to salvage the tie.
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