Mahwah - The Ramapo “Green Raiders behind junior point guard Sarah Halejian defeated Holy Angels 73-63 to win the 2010 Bergen county Girls Basketball Championship before a near capacity crowd of 1,300 at the Bradley Center at Ramapo College on Saturday.

The Game was a rematch of the 2007 title game and the rubber match between Ramapo and Angels who split the season series.  The game was also kept in the NBIL family as both teams are member of the NBIL’s Division 1.

Ramapo (21-6) becomes the 13th team in the 36 year history of the tournament to successfully defend their title and the first team to repeat since Holy Angels in 2000.  Paramus Catholic did it six times while, Pascack Valley, Teaneck, Ridgewood and Holy Angels each defended it twice.

It is also the 23rd time that a public and parochial school have met in the Championship game with the parochial’s winning 16 of those meetings.  But the publics are 3-0 in the since 2008.

Ramapo jumped out to a 2-0 lead and never looked back.   The closest that Holy Angels (17-9) ever got to the Green Raiders was 4-2, as they missed shots early in the game that turned a 2-point deficit into a 9-points at the end of the first period.   They trimmed it to seven at the half, but it was still a lot of ground to make up in a title game.

They made some of it up as the buzzer sounded to end the 3rd period.   Dakota DeBellis was fouled at the opposing foul line while heaving a “Hail Mary”  three-point shot.   She not-so-quietly sank three free throws, cutting what could have been an 8-point hole to five.  As a pumped DeBellis let out a roar ,that was heard all the way back in Demarest, on her way back to the bench, it appeared we may just have the turning point of the game.

But Ramapo would have none of that, they continued to play their game and slowed down the Angels attack.   The experience of being in a second straight championship paid off for the Green Raiders with much of the same cast of last year’s squad, was a significant advantage as opposed to Holy Angels whose junior laden team was making its first appearance since 2007.

Ramapo was once again led by Halejian (25 ppg) who did what she does best, play basketball and score points.  She led all scorers with 23 points and has been in double figures the entire tournament (13, 11, 30, 23, 23) matching her output against Pascack Valley in the final four. 

But championship games bring out the best in some as people seize the moment.  Saturday was that day for Deanna Devonshuk.  The junior guard put together her best offensive game of the tournament and the season quietly scoring 18 points.

Holy Angels came out of the locker-room at the half and quickly cut the 7 point lead down to 3.  After a timeout by Ramapo, Devonshuk took over scoring 6 points on consecutive three point plays clipping the Angels wings, putting the lead back up to 9.

Holy Angels was again led by the junior trio of Jaclyn Jerkovich(19 ppg) with a tournament high 21 points, Nicole Pepe (20 ppg) with 17 points and Jillian Crawford (18 ppg) who knocked down 12.

And the scariest thing is, that with these teams being so young and talented we could see both of them back in the championship game next season.

See you next year..

Game photos coming soon !!