Photo courtesy of Ramapo Athletics
The Roadrunners came away with a conference victory for the first time in over a month on Saturday when they took down the Gothic Knights of New Jersey City University by a score of 3-2.
The victory put the Roadrunners at 2-3-2 in the conference and improved their overall record to 9-3-2.
“Our goal is to make the NJAC tournament and with this win we rebuilt our confidence and got a step closer to our goal,” said sophomore Ryan Campbell.
“Since making the playoffs depends on us getting good results in our last three games, it was important that we start off with a win,” said sophomore Jorge Castro.
Junior Justin Olaya put the Roadrunners on the board early in the first half to give the Roadrunners the 1-0 lead.
Freshman Edward Franzoni gave Ramapo a 2-0 lead with a beautiful header off of a header from Castro toward the end of the first half.
In the second half, the team’s leading scorer Campbell added onto his goal total with a tremendous strike outside of the box to give Ramapo a commanding 3-0 lead.
“It was a very interesting goal. Kevin Monaghan played a great threaded ball down the line and I was in a position to cross it,” Campbell said about his goal. “I saw Eddie making a run and I tried to cross it in hard where only he would be able to get it. But with the wind and a little bit of knuckle it started to drift toward goal. The goalie tried to jump the cross leaving the goal open and the ball just flew in the net.”
NJCU would tally on a goal late in the second half, but it would not be enough for a comeback, and the clocks hit triple-zeros with Ramapo taking home the 3-1 victory.
The Roadrunners had 27 shots in the ball game, 20 of them coming in the first half.
The Roadrunners have two more conference games left: this Saturday at No. 10 Rowan, and then their Senior Day against Kean University on Wednesday.
The Roadrunners have already surpassed their win total from last year, but junior Justin Olaya does not think that is enough to be deemed a successful season.
“I wouldn't say ‘successful’ because success in my book is making the NJAC playoffs,” said Olaya.
“We feel we can accomplish much more,” added Castro.
The Roadrunners earned their 10th victory of the season yesterday when they took down non-conference opponent Western Connecticut State by a score of 3-0.
With two conference games left, Olaya said there is one goal: “win.”
“Our mentality is just focus on the task at hand. We want to make NJACs and we know what we have to do to get there,” said Campbell. “We have had an unlucky stretch of games earlier in conference play but that is behind us and we need to take care of business in this final stretch of the season."
rmorik@ramapo.edu
