Hockey: The Return to The Rock — Ramsey headed to second straight Public B state final

Underneath the stands at Prudential Center nearly one year ago to the day, the contrast between the two locker rooms was quite apparent. On one side, the loud and boisterous celebration was on full blast for Morristown, which captured the Public B state title in dramatic fashion with a last-minute goal for the upset 1-0 win over Ramsey.

Down the hallway in the dark corridors of The Rock — close enough to where Ramsey could certainly hear the Motown party taking place — the Rams’ room was painfully quiet. It wasn’t just your typical season-ending loss, but rather one in which came in one of the most gut-wrenching ways possible… and on the biggest of stages.

Moments after coach Bob Toy and the Ramsey coaching staff addressed the team, thanking them all for the incredible year that had just ended and certainly not forgetting to mention how proud the entire town of Ramsey was of them — then-seniors Chris Butryn and Anthony Pedulla were kind enough to give me a few minutes of their time after the crushing and heartbreaking defeat.

“There’s nothing we can say and nothing we can do to pick everybody back up,” Pedulla said. “We just have to move on. They’ll be back next year.”

“A bunch of us were crying in the locker room,” Butryn added. “I told the guys coming back that they have to get it next year. For all of us.”

Fast-forward to Wednesday night, with second-seeded Ramsey taking on third-seeded Glen Rock with a trip back to The Rock at stake.

As Ramsey secured that coveted return trip back to the state final with a gritty 3-2 win over the Panthers, the ensuing celebration was somewhat subdued for a team that had just won a state semifinal contest.

Having been around this team for two years now, there’s a different feel from Ramsey this time around than that of the 2013-14 version.

Last year, Ramsey plastered “4074″ on the back of their T-shirts, representing the latitude and longitude coordinates for The Rock. They were so concerned, so focused, so determined on getting to The Rock that perhaps the Rams had already felt a great sense accomplishment in just getting there after two years of coming up one win short, falling in the state semifinals in both 2012 and 2013.

Now, it’s about taking the next step. The Final Step.

* * * * *

“Unfinished Business” has been the new team slogan the whole season — really for the whole calendar year — and, make no mistake, this Ramsey team is not just happy be here this time. Not at all.

The numbers “33.8″ have been engrained into the minds of every Ramsey player — even most of the Ramsey fans — who all felt the pain of last-minute defeat in the state final last year… and nothing short of a state championship this year will help ease that pain.

It’s why Toy, for the first time since winning that 2009 state title, has broken out the championship ring during this postseason run — to serve as a game-by-game reminder as to what Ramsey is playing for.

“Ever since we lost that game, we have wanted to get back to this point,” said Ramsey’s Alex Whelan, who delivered a game-tying, shorthanded breakaway goal (his 47th of the year) 3:09 into the second period Wednesday to increase his goal-scoring streak to 17 games.

“But now that we’re here, this time we have to step up and take it this time. Everything we have done since last year ended has been to win a state title. Coming so close has only motivated everyone that much more to keep working hard, knowing we have something we want to get at the end. Now we just have to finish.”

“We’re really excited to get back there and do what we couldn’t do last year,” Ramsey’s Brandon O’Callahan said.

* * * * *

The Return to The Rock didn’t come easy for Ramsey on Wednesday night, with Glen Rock determined to knock off its Bergen County nemesis after playing the Rams so well in a 2-1 overtime loss in this year’s Bergen County tournament semifinals. This was the Panthers’ chance at payback.

After a rather even first 14 minutes of play, the Panthers struck blood first when Brandon Rosario — the hero for Glen Rock so many times this season, including scoring both goals in Rock’s 2-0 win over St. Joseph in the Freedom Cup final — delivered an unassisted go-ahead score with 13.9 seconds remaining in the opening period.

Just like that, Glen Rock grabbed the momentum moments before a lengthy intermission for an ice cut. Though trailing 1-0, however, Ramsey wasn’t sweating.

“The experience of being here before sure did help,” Toy said. “We weren’t nervous… as a matter of fact, they were so relaxed and loose after that that they were singing and dancing in the locker room. They weren’t tense, they weren’t gripping the sticks and when I saw that, I wasn’t worried. They felt comfortable.”

The must-ask follow-up question to that, of course, is… why the singing and dancing?

“Well, we didn’t have speakers in the locker room because there was no outlet,” Whelan said, laughing. “And we always listen to the same song, “The Joker and the Thief,” and we couldn’t play it in between periods, so we all started singing it together. We really were just so relaxed.”

Fittingly, one of the lines sung early in that Wolfmother song is, “So we… are not… going home.”

Whelan then mentioned the disparity between the team’s attitude Wednesday night between the first and second periods and that of the attitude it had two years ago, when Chatham took a 1-0 lead early in the second period in another Public B semifinal contest.

“We were playing at the same place, the same round, and we went down 1-0 and we just like shocked,” Whelan said. “We thought we’d come in and win easy. This year we knew we’d battle when we went down. It was a one-goal game. We just had to score, and we’ve scored plenty this year. That was our attitude. It just came down to who wanted it more.”

Playing the hero to the rescue role yet again for Ramsey, it was Whelan who swung the momentum back on Ramsey’s side early in the second, despite the Rams taking two penalties — sandwiched around one Glen Rock penalty — to give the Panthers a 4-on-3 power play.

Anticipating a Glen Rock perimeter pass near Ramsey’s blue line, the Quinnipiac-bound senior and two-time Record Player of the Year stepped in front to intercept the puck, then raced down the length of the ice for the shorthanded and breakaway game-tying goal.

“Alex, man… that kid is such a special hockey player,” O’Callahan said. “It’s his gift to capitalize in moments like that. He’s our captain for a reason and it’s because of moments like that. He’s done it before and bailed us out and tonight he got us back on track.”

“You like your chances when Alex has the puck on his stick in open space like that,” Toy said.

“I don’t feel like there’s pressure,” Whelan said when asked if there’s pressure on him to continue coming up with timely postseason goals. “I know this team has my back whether I’m scoring or not. If I get it started, great. Another time it could be someone different. Whoever does get it started though, it’s good, because I think the rest of the team always feeds off that energy.”

Such was the case Wednesday night.

Just 68 seconds following Whelan’s equilizer, the Rams struck again — this time on a 2-on-1 break involving Anthony Steffe and Whelan. Steffe came down the right side of the ice with control of the puck, while Whelan trailed on the left. Steffe had a split-second to make a decision — give it to the state’s most prolific scorer — or take the shot himself.

“That was a great play and goal by him,” Whelan said. “I just won the face-off back in our end and chipped it to O.C. [Brandon O’Callahan]. He got it to Anthony and he had some space so I was yelling to him, ‘Shoot it.’ ”

Steffe listened… and delivered a laser wrister past Glen Rock goalie Matt Rosario to the the top-right corner of the net to give the Rams a 2-1 lead with 10:43 remaining in the second.

“I thought Anthony’s play was huge for us,” Toy said. “That 2-on-1 when Alex drove the net hard and the D kind of looked off on Anthony and he just ripped it. That was a big moment for us.”

Perhaps the game’s biggest turning point came minutes later, when O’Callahan took a five-minute major penalty for boarding with 9:10 left in the second. Not only did Ramsey have to fight off a five-minute power play, but it had to do so without O’Callahan, considered by many to be one of the premiere defensemen in the state (and someone who very rarely is in the box).

The Rams killed off 4:04 of that 5-minute major — with goalie Tyler Harmon making over a handful of saves — before Glen Rock committed a penalty of its own to negate the final 56 seconds of the man-advantage. Just seconds after the 4-on-4 ended and O’Callahan returned to the ice, the junior defenseman assisted on Connor Edwards’ goal with 3:47 left in the second period — his second assist of the night — to give Ramsey a 3-1 lead on the shortened power play. Edwards’ goal proved to be the game-winner after Glen Rock’s Rosario scored his second goal of the night late in the third period.

“There were definitely a lot of highs and lows in that sequence of events,” O’Callahan said. “But we have a great group of guys. When someone’s out, someone else steps right in and picks up the slack. I’m really proud of our guys for that. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do at that period in time, but you know what… our guys came to the rescue and bailed me out.”

“Those are the turning points of games,” Whelan said. “They could have easily turned our 2-1 lead and taken a 3-2 lead themselves on that power play.”

“Brandon is such a solid defenseman and probably one of our unsung heroes,” Toy said of O’Callahan. “He doesn’t get a lot of credit, he doesn’t put up a lot of points on the board like a lot of the flashy defensemen in the state, but he is just so solid on the blue line, he makes all the right moves, he’s a physical hockey player that we know we can count on shift in and shift out. He logs a ton of minutes and he’s one of our most underrated superstars on our team.”

O’Callahan went out of his way to credit Garrett Mast (“He’s such a hard-worker, a great center and skates 100 percent to every puck,” he said. “He’s doing everything he can, using his body. He’s not the biggest guy out there, but definitely has the biggest heart.”) and Jack Jordan (“He came back to play a little ‘D’ during that and did a great job,” O’Callahan said) as two of the main contributors on the game-changing penalty kill.

“We had to kill about seven minutes in that second period,” Toy said. “That was brutal. But that kill swung the game for us I thought. … Playing shorthanded all those minutes, we were plugging and playing, moving guys all around. We had Alex in the box for a bit and it was chess moves all throughout that period. But everyone stepped up and we had some guys who weren’t used to playing with each other do one hell of a job. I was happy to see that.”

* * * * *

So now, this is it…. Ramsey vs. Middletown North for all the marbles in what will be the final game for the most successful and decorated senior class in Ramsey hockey history.

These seniors — led by Whelan and Edwards and Nick Botta and Jack Jordan and Chris Kopack — have gone 93-17-6 the past four years, won three Big North Division Cups, won a public school state record 28 games last year, reached four straight Public B semifinals, two straight Bergen County finals and now two straight Public B state finals.

The most important thing missing from that list of accomplishments is the state ring. Opportunities like this do not come around often — especially two years in a row — but Ramsey, through hard work and dedication the past 12 months, has earned the right for a second chance at glory after the last four state wins.

Their one final chance together, the last opportunity to right the wrongs of last year and the two years prior to that, comes Monday night at The Rock.

There is a matter of some #UnfinishedBusiness to attend to for Ramsey. And this Rams team appears ready for it.

PUBLIC B STATE SEMIFINAL
at Codey Arena in West Orange
RAMSEY 3, GLEN ROCK 2
Ramsey    0    3    0    –    3
Glen Rock    1    0    1    –    2
Goals: (GR) Brandon Rosario 2; (R) Alex Whelan, Anthony Steffe, Connor Edwards
Assists: (R) Brandon O’Callahan 2; (GR) Jake Kinney
Saves: (R) Tyler Harmon 20; (GR) Matt Rosario 23
Shots: Ramsey 26 (9 in 1st, 14 in 2nd, 3 in 3rd); Glen Rock 22 (5 in 1st, 11 in 2nd, 6 in 3rd)
SCORING SUMMARY
First period
0:14: Glen Rock — Brandon Rosario (unassisted) — 1-0 Glen Rock
Second period
11:51: Ramsey — Alex Whelan (unassisted and shorthanded) –  Game tied 1-1
10:43: Ramsey — Anthony Steffe (assisted by Brandon O’Callahan) — 2-1 Ramsey
3:47: Ramsey — Connor Edwards (power play goal assisted by Brandon O’Callahan) — 3-1 Ramsey
Third period
1:53: Glen Rock — Brandon Rosario (with goalie pulled; assisted by Jake Kinney) — 3-2 Ramsey