Ramos, O'Hern Lead Ward Melville to First-Ever County Championship

It was obvious coming in that the main task for Ward Melville and its defense would be to slow down Northport’s dynamic duo of Rosy Hayes and Kristi Abbate.

“They’re two of the best players in Suffolk County, if not on Long Island,” Ward Melville head coach John Diehl said.

As hard as the pair tried, they were not able to get the ball past Patriots goalkeeper Ally Ramos who made Ward Melville’s early goal stand up in a 1-0 victory Wednesday night in the Suffolk Class AA finals.

The victory gave Ward Melville its first county championship in program history. For Ramos it was more of the same as she made 15 saves for her 13th shutout of the season.

“She was phenomenal,” Diehl said. “Ally is the best on Long Island and she proved it tonight.”

Tara O’Hern put the Patriots on the board a little under ten minutes into the game when she converted a corner kick by Adrianna Morra that snuck across the goal line.

Northport fired early and often, controlling the play in the first half and well into the second. Hayes – who was one of the top goal scorers on Long Island in 2011 with 17 – had numerous opportunities, many of them point blank, but was turned away each time by Ramos.

Hayes nearly put the Tigers up early after a quick pass from Courtney Fortunato. Hayes fired the ball low but Ramos was able to get a piece of it with her foot, sending it wide of the goal.

Ward Melville’s defense nearly gave one away just ten minutes after they went up. Hayes once again found the ball on her foot in a prime scoring area but fired a hard shot that went off the cross bar and came directly down, but not across the goal line.

“We weren’t sure if we were going to hold on,” Diehl said. “They were coming at us, throwing everything at us.”

Hayes had another chance on a free kick just outside the box but fired it into a wall of Ward Melville defenders. Abbate primarily used her open field skills to dribble around defenders and help set up her teammates but had a good scoring chance on a long drive late in the first half as well.

"We were asking ourselves, 'what do we do?'" Diehl said. “It was just one wave after another."

The Ward Melville coach said he changed his defense a little in the second half to take away the central passing that led to many of Northport’s early chances. It worked to an extent – with the help of Ramos of course.

It also wasn’t the most productive night for the Ward Melville offense but it certainly was an opportunistic one. "We get opportunities and capitalize," Diehl said. "We didn’t have as many opportunities as usual but we connected."

Ward Melville moves on to play Macarthur for the Long Island Championship Saturday.