Story and photo by Jay Cook
UNION – Every championship squad takes their own road to the title game, and this year’s Red Bank Catholic girls soccer team can say their trip was one-of-a-kind.
After a modest 11-10 record heading into the playoffs, the Caseys captured lightning in a bottle on their way towards the Non-Public Group “A” title match against Oak Knoll. After 80 minutes of regulation and two 10-minute overtime periods, the score stayed put at 3-3, and the two teams were crowned co-champions.
“The game should be won on the field, and if you can’t win it in 100 minutes, I don’t have a problem at all with co-champions,” RBC coach Frank Lawrence said after the Nov. 13 game.
Early in the match, which was held at Kean University, the Caseys fell to a 1-0 deficit, after some early struggles with ball control. It did not take long though for the team to bounce back and change the complexion of the match.
Only a minute of game time after falling behind, senior Sophie Demurjian knocked in the tying score.
The game would soon turn into a complete shootout with a total of four goals being scored in the second period, a back and forth affair between the two teams.
After each of the two remaining Oak Knoll goals, a pair of Caseys sisters who stepped up and controlled the pitch, scoring equalizers to keep the match in striking distance.
“I just knew that we played really hard and that if we just kept playing the way we had been playing, that we were going to stay back in it and possibly win,” said senior Marisa Rafaniello.
She was on the receiving end of a pass from Jylissa Harris, who has been a constant source of scoring for RBC down the stretch. In the 63rd minute, Rafaniello knocked in a tying goal to the bottom right corner of the net, and was mobbed by her teammates.
“I was just trying to get my team back in it and was trying to fight for us,” she said.
After the second of two long-distance goals by Oak Knoll’s Meagan O’Callahan, the younger Rafaniello just so happened to be in the right place at the right time for some clean-up duty around the net.
Juliana Rafaniello, a sophomore for the Caseys, scored the last goal of the match in the 77th minute of regulation, stunning the Oak Knoll bench and erupting the RBC fans in the stands.
“Honestly, I just wanted to put everything into it and leave everything on the field, and I really wanted to win the game,” she said of her late goal.
After a tough, hard-fought match, the result was a tie, and a subsequent crowning of RBC and Oak Knoll as co-champions.
There certainly was a unique feeling on the pitch last Sunday night as the final horn. Players were neither dejected nor enthralled as the game ended, but once it was time for each squad to raise the trophy, moods surely brightened.
“I mean, it’s bittersweet,” Juliana Rafaniello said. “We didn’t have a really good regular season, but when it came to tournament time, we worked really hard, and we wanted to win this.”
“It’s been tough; you can see our kids, how hard they worked through the whole thing and how they came back three times – three times we gave up a goal – and three times we came back to tie it up,” Lawrence said. “That just shows you the heart that this team had today, and I’m just incredibly proud of them.”
RBC’s performance in the title game was, in a nutshell, similar to how their entire 2016 season played out – they fell behind early on, stayed competitive throughout, found a rhythm near the end and were in it to the end.
At one point in the season, the Caseys were looking at 4-6 record, injuries all around, and wondering where the season had gone. From that point on, the team would lose only four more matches, rightfully earning berths into postseason play.
Although they faltered and lost to Freehold Township in the second round of the Shore Conference tournament, RBC ran the table through their state tournament bracket. In their eyes, RBC is just as much a champion as any of the others.
“We’re the champions,” Lawrence said. “We were the outright champions of the South section, and we’re state champions; that’s all that matters.”
