VIDEO-St. Joe’s Rains on Ramapo’s Parade

It was the one bad habit Ramapo was unable to break this season, and it finally caught up to them Wednesday night in the semifinals of the Big North Silver Division playoffs.

Ramapo had stumbled out of the starting blocks on several occasions this year, but always managed to recover with some late-game heroics.

Upstart St. Joe’s struck for a pair of goals in a 17-second span in the first minute of the second period, and this time, that was a hole too deep for the tournament’s No. 1 to dig out of. The Raiders (18-5-2) dominated the third period, but could not get on the board until there were just 35.6 seconds remaining in what became a crushing 2-1 defeat—ending Ramapo’s playoff run one win short of advancing to Friday night’s championship game.

“We didn’t play desperation hockey until the third period,” said coach Lee Barber. “We’ve started slowly quite a few times this season, and we’ve talked about it over and over. You have to start from the beginning—especially against a team like St. Joe’s—and we didn’t do that tonight.”

And thus Ramapo’s season ended in the same place it did last year, but having beaten St. Joe’s twice during the season—by counts of 3-0, and 3-1—this one was the more bitter pill to swallow.

“From the first shift I sensed we were fumbling the puck and not on our game,” said Barber. “It’s an empty, unsatisfying feeling—and one we don’t want to experience again come the state tournament.”

St. Joe’s got goals from James Peek and Jake Healey at 14:21 and 14:04 of the second period, and junior goalie Eric Frasca made that stand up with timely saves throughout, but especially over the final 15 minutes, during which Ramapo outshot them 12-4. Dylan Roberts pulled Ramapo to within a goal with 35 seconds remaining, but the Raiders never got close again.

Ulimately, Ramapo’s playoff run was undone by a dreadful start to the second period, which they began shorthanded after Jeremy Roberts was penalized with just three seconds left in the first period.

“That stretch was a matter of us sticking to our game plan and them panicking a bit,” said St. Joe’s coach Jason Briggs. “They hadn’t trailed us all season, and we just kept trying to come at them with our forecheck.”

St. Joe’s played smart, disciplined hockey, blocked countless shots and managed to get their sticks into passing lanes throughout the game, frustrating Ramapo until the late stages.

“We’ve improved as the season has gone on, and having played them to a 2-1 game—before an empty net goal—we believed we could beat them,” added Briggs. “We knew they were a physical team so we wanted to take it right to them, and match their physicality without it resulting in penalties. Being the underdog seems to agree with us.”

Ramapo has a few days to regroup before the state tournament begins Tuesday night against Indian Hills at the Ice Vault.

“It’s hard to beat a team three times in a season,” said Barber, “but we might have been guilty of looking ahead to next week. We would have preferred going into the state tournament with some momentum. Hopefully, this dose of reality will do us some good.”