Ridgewood Falls to Ramapo in High-Scoring Game

Black clouds hovered high above the field turf in Franklin Lakes at Ramapo High School, threatening to wash out a matchup of two highly-regarded Big North soccer programs – Ridgewood and Ramapo. However, with the sun breaking through the darkness, it became obvious early on that the only storm brewing was the monsoon of shots on goal from both sides.

When the bombardment had finally ceased, the Ramapo Raiders emerged victorious, behind 23 total shots, 18 of which were on target. They'd win by a final score of 7-4.

"We came out ultra aggressive," said Ramapo's Sean Etheridge, who led all scorers with four goals. "We wanted to put their defense under constant pressure and I think we accomplished that with some excellent passing and swift off-ball movement."

Etheridge, a sophomore, got the party started by scoring three goals in the first twenty-five minutes of play. His opening tally came by way of penalty courtesy of a Ridgewood player tripping him the box.

"There was a loose ball and I made a quick scramble for it," said the Raider striker.

"Once I got possession, I tried to juke the defender with a little in-and-out move which worked out pretty well considering I drew the foul."

With that Etheridge was able to pound the ball in to the bottom right corner of the net before adding a header and a tip in to give Ramapo a 3-2 halftime advantage.

Ridgewood managed to keep the game close thanks to first half scores from Nick Simon and Billy Maltz. As a team, the Maroons accounted for 17 shots, however only 7 were of the on-target variety.

"We came out and played as hard as we could," said team captain Griffin Abbot, "but Ramapo is a very solid team and we need to execute better on both offense and defense if we expect to beat a team of this caliber."

In the second half, Ramapo came out and quickly added two more on to the scoreboard. The first came at 1:20 mark when Matt Deziel connected on a perfect corner kick with teammate Joe Doughan, who redirected the ball to the top right corner of the cage.

Then, just ten minutes later, Mike Taranto (brother of Ramapo soccer great Jimmy Taranto) got loose on a fast break. Taranto struck the ball past the Ridgewood goalie to give his team a seemingly insurmountable 5-2 lead.

From that point on both teams would exchange scores two more times, but the outcome never remained in doubt. The win moves Rampo's record to 2-0 on the young season while dropping Ridgewood to 1-1.

Both teams will return to action later this week when Ramapo hosts Paramus Catholic on Sunday and Ridgewood travels to Passaic County-Tech on Thursday.