Boys Soccer Heads to Championship – Caging Bobcats of Byram Hills, Avenging ’23 Match
It was a good day for Rye Boys Varsity Soccer.
The Garnets avenged their 2023 match-up against Byram Hills, caging the Bobcats for a 2 – 1 win to advance to the Section 1 Championship Match at Lakeland High School on Sunday. November 3, 2024 with a 10:00am kickoff against the Ardsley Panthers (watch).
“It was an epic match, one of the best I’ve ever been part of at any level of the game,” Coach Jared Small told MyRye.com after the win. “We were sharp from the beginning, played with a level of tenacity that we saw in the quarterfinal against Lakeland and knew we needed to amplify in order to succeed today. I think we excelled in all phases of the game–our rotations were crisp in the midfield, our defenders were absolutely keyed in, our goalkeeper was confident, and our forwards were committed to the cause. We hit some really nice overloads and changed the point of attack fairly well, so we’ll look to build off this performance and prepare with all we have for Sunday’s championship match.”
Small was effusive: “I think that just about every one of our players had their best match of the season. Kaden Zion absolutely gutted it out in a duel between him and Byram Hills midfielder Sebastian Olego, two of the top players in all of Section 1. Peter Wilmot again was magnificent as the engine room of our team, and Alex van der Voort put together what was hands down his strongest performance of the year. Jack Gilroy and Zac Ramsey were lights out against one of the top scorers in the area. All 31 members of our team did their jobs, and it took our absolute best to achieve this result.”
Rye came out swinging from the start, establishing a healthy dose of possession and matching the physicality brought by a strong, veteran Byram Hills squad. In the 18th minute, Shun Nagata won a Byram throw in the attacking third and found Felix Wismer, who returned the ball to Nagata 30 yards from goal. After a nifty move to elude his defender, Nagata took a shot that was destined for the top right corner and wound up just beating the outstretched Byram goalkeeper.
Rye remained on the front foot for much of the first half, maintaining its poise even after one or two golden opportunities for the defending champ Bobcats. Byram Hills came out strong in the second half, and Chris Amenedo curled a shot into the far post from 23 yards out to even the score at 1-1 in the 50th minute. But Rye came out strong on the ensuing kickoff, stringing together 9 consecutive passes and moving into the attacking third before the spell of possession was ended. This proved to be a sign of things to come, as Rye continued to ask questions of Byram until the magic moment came in the 56th minute. Jack Gilroy played a ball to Zac Ramsey in the defensive third, and Ramsey sprayed the ball left to Lex Cox. Cox drove up the left flank, combined on a picture perfect give-and-go with Kaden Zion, and then served a ball into the box that ricocheted off a few players and back to Zion, who calmly took a touch to settle and then buried what proved to be the game winner.
The final 20 minutes were a battle of attrition, with the Garnets playing their 3rd intense playoff match in 6 days and the Bobcats–though coming off to blowout wins in the opening rounds—also dealing with the unseasonal heat. Byram put together a string of 7 long throw ins and set pieces in the closing minutes, but Rye defended with resolve and held off the final Bobcat push.
Watch the replay of the Garnet win over Byram Hills.
