Ramsey 48 Ridgefield Park 34
Offense was the name of the game tonight as Ramsey beat Ridgefield Park, 48-34. There was always the feeling a big play was around the corner in this game and it usually was.
First Quarter: Ramsey struck quickly when Danny Veenstra went 55 yards for a score on the quarterback keeper. Shortly after that, Ridgefield Park tied it, 6-6 when Andrew Vargas scored from a yard out. The score was set up on a 38-yard Brevin Cooney-to-Joe Rinaldi pass two plays earlier. Ramsey went in front when Luca Gemma scored on a 5-yard run with the big play on the drive being a Veenstra run of 42 yards.
Second Quarter: Ridgefield Park bridged the two quarters with a drive that went to the Ramsey 14, but it was turned over on downs. Veenstra immediately found Joey Hunt for 56 yards to the 30. The drive was capped off by a 2-yard touchdown by Gemma on fourth down to make it 21-6. Ridgefield Park answered when Cooney found Jalexin Pimentel for 53 yards to the 5-yard line and Cooney scored on the following play. After trading drives, Ramsey went 71 yards in 46 seconds and scored with four seconds left in the half when Veenstra found Gemma for a 5-yard score to make it 27-12. The big play on the drive was a 32-yard Veenstra run.
Third Quarter: Things settled down until Ramsey made a couple of big plays. Justin Martone went 47 yards and Gemma ran 22 yards to the 13. Martone scored two plays later on a 9-yard run.
Fourth Quarter: Ridgefield Park would not go away, striking on a 22-yard pass from Cooney to Pimentel in the right corner of the end zone, keeping within two touchdowns at 33-20. Veenstra scored on a 20-yard keeper and the two-point conversion was successful for a 41-20 lead. Ridgefield Park would not quit with two scores sandwiched around a Ramsey score, including a score with four seconds left.
Summary: Ramsey has an offense that is hard to stop. Veenstra had 283 yards of total offense with 178 yards rushing on 13 carries, while completing 8 of 11 for 105 yards. Martone rushed for 105 yards while Gemma had three touchdowns. Defense is the area they need to tighten up, especially with the playoffs coming.
Ridgefield Park was and is a resilient team. They wouldn’t go away and their other loss was similar when they came back from a larger deficit. They are probably a playoff team and that kind of resiliency can result in them surprising somebody.