Part I: Reflections on a Banner Year for Ridge Sports

Ridge’s high school sports season has come to a close and below some coaches and star senior players offer some thoughts on their respective seasons as they prepared for graduation.

FOOTBALL

The Ridge football team, despite a tough year record-wise, withstood many injuries and obstacles and managed to keep their games competitive. The team says goodbye to a big senior class, led by fullback/running back Anthony Milito, one of the team’s and county’s best players.

Coach Bill Tracy: "Our season was a tough one, as we endured tough injuries to several players and four losses by seven or less points each, three of which were to teams ranked in the Top 20 in the state. But the kids kept working hard, right until the end. They had a great attitude, and that has launched us into a very strong off-season so far."

 GYMNASTICS

 The Ridge gymnastics program has become a powerhouse in recent years, as evidenced by their success this past season. The program is only five years old but has reached unprecedented heights. They hosted their first ever home gym meets this past season after tremendous fund-raising efforts over several years.

Kristie Wei led the way for the team's year of hard work guided by coaches Kyla Mendes and Laura McManus. She placed third all-around at the county tournament. She will be heading to San Jose State College where she will continue her gymnastics career.

Wei: “This season was great, not just for me, but for the whole Ridge program. We continuously kept on moving up in rankings, and I'm so sad to be graduating. I love this team so much and I can't wait for it to continue to grow, and I'm so happy that I was able to be a part of such a great team. I know that this team will continue to grow and I can't wait to see what this team achieves in the next coming years. We started from basically nothing, and in only five years, we were ranked as high as 13th in the state. But we couldn't have done it without our amazing coaches, Kyla Mendes and Lauren McManus. They have gotten this team to what it is today and I have no doubt in my mind that they will continue to keep this team high in the rankings.”

BOYS BASKETBALL

 The Ridge Boys basketball program enjoyed unprecedented success under then-coach Mark Taylor, who left Ridge after the season to take the coaching job at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark. While they await their new coach to arrive, the team says goodbye to four seniors, including Conor Skea along with Taylor Bliss, J.B. Kole and Tom Gambino. Ridge went 15-12 this past season despite Gambino’s season long battle with injuries and also advanced to the State semifinals in North 2, Group 4 play. Gambino, the 6', 7" center, will be playing college basketball next year for Kean University.

Assistant coach Rocco Matrisciano: “The seniors were a great group of kids. They faced a lot of adversity this season with the Gambino injury and played a very difficult schedule and lost a bunch of close games but never gave up, finishing the season by winning 10 of their last 13 was a testament to their mental toughness.”

Skea, who will be attending the College of Charleston: “My career at Ridge was a great career and it was great to play for a winning program. The County Final title in 2010 was one of the most exciting moments in my life. Ridge basketball taught me so much and being around the guys on the team everyday was a pleasure.

This past was about overcoming adversity and we had the target on our backs. We were able to mesh together and advance to the state semifinals despite losing the big three from the previous year (Andrew Madlinger, Christian Frisoli and Nick Cefalo).”

GIRLS SOCCER

Oftentimes teams play with adversity. But what the Ridge girls’ soccer team was able to accomplish this season was something special. Despite losing a plethora of players to season-ending injuries, the team persevered and was able to make the state tournament. They took soccer power Bridgewater-Raritan, the No. 2 seed, into penalty kicks before succumbing 4-1 there in a game that ended 1-1 in regulation play of the North Jersey Section 2, Group 4 state tournament quarterfinals.

Ridge finished the season 8-9-3.

Coach Katie Donahue: “Overall, we played through a lot of diversity with many players who faced season ending injuries — five of them — as well as needing a lot of flexibility to move players around to fill in vacated positions. We had a strong senior class, as well as many newcomers that earned solid minutes on the field.  We struggled to find the back of the net, which ultimately hurt us, as most of our losses were by one goal.”

Jaime Lunny, who’s heading to Georgetown University: “Our team had a fun season this year. We faced a tough schedule after the Skyland Conference was re-organized but I feel like our team met the challenge head on and found success. Throughout all of the hard and gritty games we were still able to laugh and enjoy every single minute. We ended the season in a frustrating loss against Bridgewater after overtime but that loss doesn't mar some of our other memorable games, like our victory against Bernards for the MSG game. I think we really developed as a team together this year and set a great foundation for next year.”

Part II will run on the Basking Ridge Patch on Saturday.