Varsity Aces

Girls Soccer: Bergen County tournament seeding

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.

I'll let you know the No. 4 seed after the jump.

Girls soccer -- Billy Joel, David Bowie and Ramapo

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.

Schwitter!!! Schwitter!!! Schwitter!!!

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.

Girls soccer -- Somebody score me a goal. Please!

I have a personal streak going that I'd like to see end as soon as possible.

I've gone 200 minutes without seeing a goal. I'll be at the IHA-Clifton game on Friday and I'm making a deal with the players from both teams. Whoever scores the first goal not only gets instantaneous stardom on The Record's new Twitter feed, but you will also get a prominent mention on this blog. I was trying to think of some sort of prize, but nothing is coming to mind. Feel free to suggest something (within reason, of course).

The last goal I saw was a memorable one. Samantha Cermack headed a ball in and touched off pandemonium at the Ridgewood bench as the Maroons defeated the Blue Eagles, 2-1. Sally Jentis had tied the score late in the first half after freshman Samantha Wilkes had given IHA the lead early in the second half. A quick aside, keep an eye on Wilkes. Besides being very tall, she's very good.

Girls Soccer -- Fans crossing the line?

I'm planning to give you two blogs tonight while I do my laundry. (What, you don't think sportswriters have laundry? The only time we don't is when kindly readers offer to do it for us. Yeah, I know. Not happening.)

Anyway, I was at Paramus Catholic-Holy Angels today and some some stuff I like and some I thought was atrocious. The stuff I liked was from the kids on the field. Both sides hustled and played their hearts out. The only thing neither team did was score (more on that in another blog).

The bad, of course, had to do with parents. What are we going to do with them?

Girls Soccer -- IHA still No. 1?

Soccer fans who were shocked to learn that Ridgewood defeated IHA on Monday might have gotten another surprise with their breakfast this morning. The Blue Eagles remained at No. 1 in our girls soccer Top 25 poll.

I have no doubt this is going to be the cause of some disbelief all over Ridgewood, but there are good reasons why the Blue Eagles remained in the top spot. One significant one was how Ridgewood coach Jeff Yearing admitted what the score didn't show: that IHA was the better team in the game. And Yearing was bursting with pride after the game, unable to contain the biggest smile I've ever seen on his face. He didn't want  to say anything that would sound insulting to IHA, but you could tell he was absolutely thrilled.

On girls soccer and family

It's always nice when two things I enjoy cross paths. On Saturday, it was soccer and the music of my favorite band, The Alarm.

I had the pleasure of covering the Coach O Classic in Saddle Brook and one thing that really struck me was the sense of family at the event. There were hundreds of people in attendance, paying tribute to a man who helped shape a community and touched a lot of lives along the way through youth sports.

Clearly, Steve Olshalsky impacted a lot of lives during his 61 years in Saddle Brook. His legacy will always be in the hundreds of kids he coached and taught about life. But that legacy was also on the sidelines yesterday, carried on by three people who obviously meant a lot to him and h ave all gone on to have coaching careers of their own -- Olshalsky's son, Steve, the coach at Saddle Brook. Nicole Olshalsky, the Pascack Valley coach whose father used to coach with the elder Olshalsky and who married the son; and Bill McPartland, the coach at Paramus Catholic.

Girls Soccer -- Freshmen who aren't question marks

What a first week it has been in girls soccer thus far. In the last couple of days I've seen Glen Rock go crazy for 16 minutes and score five goals to beat Waldwick 5-0. Then Ridgewood rallied in the second half for three goals to defeat a very good Paramus team, 3-1. I'm not even going to mention Paramus Catholic shocking Ramapo, 2-1, because I wasn't there. Then again, I guess I just did mention it.

One thing that has stood out in the two games I covered was the play of some freshmen. While some coaches would prefer we don't write about their freshmen because of their concerns regarding egos and team chemistry, the freshmen crew at Glen Rock can't be ignored. Neither can Paramus freshman Sarah Cortes, who was outstanding against Ridgewood on Wednesday.

Girls Soccer -- The season begins

It felt like softball season started all over again on Friday, except this was five months later and it was actually soccer season. But the weather was the same: cold, rainy, raw and decidedly unseasonable. Summer (You know, that season that lasted for about two weeks during early August) seems to already have given way to autumn.

It took some doing to find a game that was being played in the dreary conditions, but Park Ridge and New Milford were able to get a game in over at the David M. Owens Middle School. The Owls opened  the season with  a 3-0 victory. That came after the teams chased the geese off the field. Shouldn't geese have more respect for owls?

Girls Soccer -- Club vs. School?

Spoke with two coaches today who I am going to let remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the following information. Apparently, more than one very talented girls soccer player may not play for her high school team this coming season. And there may be more.

There certainly will be more to come on this situation, but I do recall a few years back when Northern Highlands midfielder Christina Gomez decided not to play her junior season after promises were made by a club team coach that didn't pan out as expected. Gomez returned to the Highlanders for her senior season.

Sure, high school soccer will get players limited exposure from Division I schools. But I'm a believer that any game experience is good experience. It teaches decision-making and reinforces what has been learned in practice. It also provides knowledge for what can be improved upon during practice. Individualized training sessions can't mirror what goes on in a game, no matter how much you pay the instructor. Learning a few fancy moves may help you impress your friends, but they don't teach you how to be a player.

Feel free to let me know what you're hearing. We are super-busy right now at Varsity Aces, speaking with the multitude of coaches and schools that we cover. So we ask for a little patience from our regular readers as we bust tail getting the annual preview sections together. You will be happy with the result.