Home Care In Ramsey, NJ

The amount of girls soccer talent that Ramsey has accumulated for a small town in the upper edges of the New Jersey border is not dumb luck.

It is a soccer community that Ramsey head coach Drew Strohmeyer makes sure is always bonded from when toddlers first start dribbling a soccer ball all the way until they reach the high school level.

It is unprecedented for a Group 2 public school team to not only be able to compete with the top private school teams in the state, but also be regarded as one of the best teams in the country.

That is exactly the kind of season the Rams put together this season. Ramsey completed a perfect 25-0 season that ended with the program’s fifth state title. Strohmeyer is the 2025 NJ.com Girls Soccer Coach of the Year.

“It’s a soccer town,” Strohmeyer said. “A lot of the parents are former collegiate players, so they understand what it takes at a young age. The big difference between the high school soccer and the club soccer is the club soccer is fantastic, but they don’t have the crowd that that we had in a state semifinal game or even our regular season games. Our stands are packed. The boys support us, the parents, the grandparents. Our grandparents do something; they have a grandparent pasta party every year. So, they’re as into it as the kids, the coaches and the parents are. It’s super nice.”

Strohmeyer runs a mini Rams clinic every spring for ages four through eight. He would go out and watch his current star players like Hope Ernst, Lizzie Rubin and Kendall Reid play as younger kids out on open fields. By the time they get to Strohmeyer in high school, he is already very familiar with them.

“The girls do a really nice job of welcoming in the younger kids and taking care of them. You hear that we created a family type environment the last eight years, so it’s been really special. Now it sort of it feeds itself. That’s when you know it’s special when the kids are doing the things that the coach would do.”

Ramsey came into this season as a team on a mission after getting upset by Madison in the state semifinals in 2024 and not earning the outright Bergen County title. With all the talent in the world, Strohmeyer just needed the Rams to focus on the goal in front of them at the current time.

As the wins continued to pile up throughout the season, the prospect of an undefeated season started to become a distinct reality. That kind of pressure can be a lot for even the best teams, so it was important for Strohmeyer to be able to manage that.

“We try to keep it as low key as possible and just approach one game at a time,” Strohmeyer said. I know it was in the back of their minds about having an undefeated season, but you want to just concentrate on that next game ahead of you or it’s not going to happen. So as a coach, I didn’t even think about it. We always focus on that, the next task ahead of us."

The Rams defeated Immaculate Heart, 3-1, to win the first outright county title in program history. They then rolled through North 1, Group 2 before defeating Pascack Valley by a 4-0 score to three-peat as sectional champions.

The big rematch with Madison was a scoreless tie for over 75 minutes before a goal from Rubin off an Ernst assist advanced the Rams to the Group 2 final. They would not need nearly as much time to take control of that game.

Ramsey scored two goals in the first three minutes of the game against Allentown in a 3-0 victory in the Group 2 final. Goals by Ernst and Reid made it known that there would be no denying Ramsey perfection.

With all the talent that the Rams had this season, it was up to Strohmeyer to make sure everyone was deployed properly. Versatility was a big part of that.

“You don’t just play one position,” Strohmeyer said. If we’re in a pinch and our right back goes down and you’re a forward on the field, we might need you to play right back for 10 minutes or 15 minutes. You want that mentality that is team-first. As long as you’re a soccer player, you can do the job there. So we sort of go in with that mentality and then in the summer try to play the kids in as many positions as possible."

Defensively, Ramsey only allowed nine goals all season. Strohmeyer has Ramsey run a three-player back line that not a ton of other high school teams utilize. Emma Steele, Brooke Dallara and Emmy Bender were impenetrable most of the time.

His goalie rotation of juniors Abby Rostkowski and Bella Baldino was also unconventional, but extremely effective.

“Most high school teams play with either one or two forwards,” Strohmeyer said. “With four in the back, I think it’s wasting a position. We want to be plus one in the back at all times. So if the other team’s got two up front, we’ve got four in the back. Now we’re plus two. We could bump that kid into the midfield or up top and hopefully stop the other team’s point of attack further up the field.”

Offensively Ernst (31 goals, 23 assists), Reid (24 goals, 15 assists) and Rubin (22 goals, 30 assists) formed a trio that was nothing short of electric. Julia Bauer, Emma Cengarle, Julia Zeug and Grace Tateossian also played high-quality soccer in the midfield.

With Ernst, Reid and Rubin all coming back next season, Ramsey will have a great chance to continue to form a dynasty.

“I’m blessed to have not only the talent that the girls have, but they’re special kids,” Strohmeyer said. “I’ve said it a lot that they’re better people than they are soccer players. As a coach, that’s what you want more than anything.”

Girls Soccer

After kicking off November with a Bergen County championship, New Jersey’s highest-ranked public program marked the middle of the month with another title-winning performance.

Top-seeded Ramsey, ranked No. 3 in the NJ.com Top 20, entered the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 playoffs on the hunt for a third-straight sectional title. Entering the sectional tournament with a perfect record for a second consecutive year, Ramsey cruised through the early portion of the bracket into a final round matchup with second-seeded Pascack Valley.

In the latest of a long line of excellent performances throughout 2025, four different goal scorers found the back of the net for the Rams as they pulled away from the Panthers with three second-half tallies en route to a 4-0 win at John C. DePuyt Field in Ramsey to capture a third consecutive sectional title.

Ramsey’s victory advances it to the Group 2 semifinal where it will host North 2, Group 2 champion No. 20 Madison, winners over No. 12 West Morris by a 2-0 margin, in a rematch of last season’s group semifinal match on Wednesday.

The Rams held the territorial edge in the early going of the match, but multiple forays into Pascack Valley’s end of the field came up empty as the Panthers held firm defensively and goalkeeper Gabby Velecela turned aside multiple shots on goal.

Ramsey maintained its offensive pressure as the first half ticked away, and the pressure eventually paid off in the form of a 35th minute goal from Lizzie Rubin to stake her team to a 1-0 lead it would carry into the halftime break.

Rubin highlighted how even as Ramsey’s early offensive chances didn’t materialize into goals, the team remained confident in its play up to that point and knew the goals would start to pile up once it scored its first.

“The whole season we’ve known to stay patient, our game is always holding possession and finding feet,” Rubin said.

“We had so many chances so we knew it was going to come. (Pascack Valley) did a good job of sitting back so we had to keep it simple and play our game so we knew we’d be alright.”

Once Ramsey took the lead, it was in its element. The late first-half tally sparked an early second-half surge as Hope Ernst finished off a breakaway to double the lead in the 42nd minute before assisting on a 49th minute tally by Julia Zeug to put the Rams firmly in control.

Ernst has been a key piece of Ramsey’s success since her arrival as a freshman in 2024, and she left her mark on the sectional title match with another multi-point performances. Both Ernst and Rubin spoke on their team’s

“We know our attack is really aggressive and we can get that first goal, so once we get it we get more comfortable. Once we get the first one it opens the gates and we just keep going,” Ernst said.

“The best thing about us is that we’re a second half team,” Rubin added. “We’ll get a little bit rattled sometimes but we never let it get to us...No matter what the score is at halftime we always have more time and more energy. We’re just so deep as a team from the starters to the game changers we have coming in later and it’s really hard to keep up with us.”

Grace Bagley capped off the scoring with a goal in the 62nd minute, and Ramsey’s defense continued to stifle Pascack Valley for the final 18 minutes and complete the shutout.

Even as two-time reigning sectional champions prior to Saturday’s tilt, Ramsey head coach Drew Strohmeyer praised the competitiveness his team has continued to show on the road to the three-peat. Where some teams may be satisfied with a prior taste of success, Strohmeyer has a team with only one loss to its record since last season as determined as ever to keep its success going.

“They’re still hungry, they were very very upset last year but they do such a good job of concentrating on the task ahead,” Strohmeyer said, referencing Ramsey’s 2-1 group semifinal overtime defeat against Madison that ended its bid at a perfect season.

“We couldn’t get back to Madison until got through Pascack Valley. They didn’t even know Madison had won until after our game so all the focus was right here. Now the focus shifts to Wednesday night against a very good Madison team”.

The rematch with Madison was not officially on Ramsey’s calendar until the clock hit triple zeroes against Pascack Valley, but Rubin and Ernst made it very clear that a rematch with Madison was something it was hoping for and Wednesday night has now been circled on that calendar.

“It’s going to be the most personal game of the season,” Rubin said. “It was my older sister’s last ever high school game so we want to win it for her and the rest of last year’s seniors. It’s the biggest game of the season for us and we’re going to be ready.”

Ernst added that 2025 has been a season of righting wrongs from 2024. This season’s county title came on the heels of being co-champions with Ramapo last season, and Ernst sees the rematch as another of 2024’s wrongs set to be righted.

“We’ve talked about it couple times, we have unfinished business. They came out with the win last time so we’ve kept how we felt after that game in our back pocket,” Ernst said.

Pascack Valley concludes its 2025 season with a record of 18-5-1.

Even as the sectional final represented the end of the road for Pascack Valley, head coach Leah Jerome’s team was in good spirits after the final whistle.

“The credit goes to the seniors and my captains Ciara (Dersimonian) and Allie (Polyniak), they’ve created a culture of loving the game,” Jerome said.

“I always say it’s not just talent that gets us here. When we’re playing at this level with this Big North schedule game after game it’s grueling. We have to be cohesive and we have to be together because that culture we foster in our program keeps up fighting in every game. Without their temperament and leadership we’re not coming up with 18 wins.”

Pascack Valley (18-5-1) 0 0 - 0

Ramsey (23-0) 1 3 - 4

Goals: (R) Lizzie Rubin (35′), Hope Ernst (42′), Julia Zeug (49′), Grace Bagley (62′)

Assists: (R) Lizzie Rubin, Hope Ernst, Emma Cengarle

Saves: (PV) Gabby Velecela 6, Eva Fischbein 1

(R) Abby Rostkowski 2

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP − Steve Klein and his fellow seniors are part of something that no other class at Westwood has enjoyed: three sectional titles in four years.

Klein scored the first touchdown to send the Cardinals on their way to a 32-6 victory over Ramsey in the North 1, Group 2 sectional football final on Nov. 14.

The Boston College commit ran for a 55-yard score in the opening minute and rushed for 101 yards to lead Westwood (11-1).

“I think it’s a lot of credit to the older guys,” Klein said. “My freshman year, it was a great senior class, and my sophomore year, a great senior class. You figure out what the standard is, and when you’re a freshman, you want to do it yourself. And as we progressed, we got better and better every year, and now it’s our show, our senior year, and the fact that we were able to do it, and make history, it means so much to us.”

The Cardinals forced three turnovers and senior Connor Readie returned a fumble 41 yards for a score in the first quarter to help extend the lead to 16-0.

Check out the photo gallery, then continue reading.

Sophomore quarterback Bruno Vega ran for two TDs to stretch the lead to 32-0. He scored on a 1-yard run in the second quarter and a 19-yard run late in the third.

Ramsey (8-3) moved the ball on the ground and junior running back Jonathan Davis capped an eight-play, 68-yard drive by scoring on a 1-yard run in the fourth.

“We lost to a very good football team,” Ramsey coach Adam Baeira said. “They run to the ball, play hard, and their defense is excellent.”

What it means

Westwood has won eight sectional titles, including in 2023 when the team punctuated a 13-0 season by capturing the Group 2 state title in overtime. This year's group has overachieved, and its 24-8 sectional semifinal win over Caldwell avenged its lone regular-season loss.

“It’s just a representation of how hard they worked in the offseason, how hard they work in season, and they do such a great job day in and day out with their approach to every game,” Westwood coach Bobby Guy said.

Westwood will host Shabazz (10-1) in a Group 2 state semifinal on Nov. 21. Shabazz defeated Madison, 26-16, in the North 2, Group 2 sectional final.

“It’s awesome, a great feeling,” Westwood senior Ryan Sklavounos said of winning the sectional title. “This year, we worked our hardest, and to get to the point, it feels great. And I know going into the state semifinals, and the championship, we want it. We want this, and the next game for that state championship, we’ll play our hardest.”

Play of the game

Readie’s fumble return for a TD was a momentum shifter. On a second-and-2, Readie scooped up the fumble near the line of scrimmage and raced 41 yards for a score and 16-0 lead at 3:16 of the first quarter.

“I saw the ball, and I was out,” Readie said. “I saw the end zone, I was gone.”

By the numbers

Westwood had 246 total yards, featuring 220 rushing. Klein carried nine times for 101 yards, and his 55-yard score came at 11:35 and on the Cardinals’ second play from scrimmage. Klein followed his TD with a a 2-point conversion run, and the Cardinals had a quartet of 2-point conversions.

Ramsey had 224 total yards, including 131 rushing. Davis carried 22 times for 139 yards, with most of it coming in the second half.

They said it

“Defense showed up, balled out,” Klein said. “Offense, we got it going early, put us up 24-0, it gave us a really good cushion, and the scoreboard speaks for itself.”

“We came out pretty fired up from the get-go,” Guy said. "Steve Klein had a huge run on that first series, and we did a great job of getting them to turn the ball over in the first half. I really think all facets of the game, offense, defense, special teams - we got a little stagnant a couple times with some penalties – but a great team effort.”

Steve Klein and Westwood left no doubt.

On just the game’s second play from scrimmage, Klein a Boston College commit, took a handoff to the right side and broke several tackles on his way to a 55-yard touchdown

The play, which occured just 25 seconds into the contest, set the tone for top-seeded Westwood as it never looked back from that point as it rolled to a 32-6 victory over third-seeded Ramsey in the final of the NJSIAA/Xfinity North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament in Washington Township.

Klein finished with 101 rushing yards on just nine carries for Westwood (11-1), which claimed its third sectional championship in the last four years.

This senior class, led by Klein has gone 43-4 during its four years.

Westwood will now host Shabazz, the North Jersey, Section 2, Group 2 champ next Friday in the Group 2 semifinals. For Klein and the rest of the Cardinals, it will be a chance to avenge last year’s loss to the Newark school in the N1G2 semifinals.

Klein followed the TD by running in the ensuing two-point conversion to give Westwood an 8-0 lead.

The advantage doubled with 3:16 remaining in the first quarter when Conner Readie returned a fumble 41 yards for a TD.

Readie’s scoop and score was one of three turnovers forced by a Westwood defense, which has limited its opponent to eight points or less in six games this season.

Quarterback Bruno Vega added to the Westwood lead with two rushing touchdowns as the sophomore scored from 1 yard out in the second quarter, then scrambled for a 19-yard score on a 4th-and-14 in the third.

As a team, Westwood ran 220 rushing yards on the night as it won its eighth sectional title in program history.

Ramsey, which was looking to avenge a 34-7 loss to Westwood on Oct. 17, falls to 8-3. Since that regular season meeting, Ramsey had won three consecutive games, scoring 107 points during that streak.

Ramsey got on the scoreboard in the fourth quarter on Jonathan Davis’ 1-yard TD run.

Davis ran the ball 22 times for 139 yards for Ramsey, which was making its first finals appearance since 2010 and was seeking its first title since 2009.

First Quarter

Westwood -- Steve Klein, 55 run (Klein run), 11:35

Westwood -- Conner Readie, 41 fumble return (Ryan Sklavounos pass from Bruno Vega), 3:16

Second Quarter

Westwood -- Bruno Vega, 1 run (Bruno Vega run), 9:35

Third Quarter

Westwood -- Bruno Vega, 19 run (Ryan Sklavounos pass from Bruno Vega), 0:22

Fourth Quarter

Ramsey -- Jonathan Davis, 1 run (pass fail), 8:42

More N.J. High School Sports stories

A Bergen County teen’s athletic career was cut short after a locker room wall collapsed on him at his school, a fresh lawsuit claims.

Ramsey High School student and two-sport varsity athlete Jackson Yakata was left with life-altering injuries after a wall in the boys’ locker room collapsed on him on Tuesday, March 18, according to the complaint filed by the Lynch Law Firm on behalf of Yakata and his mother, Amanda Fisher.

The suit names the Borough of Ramsey, the Ramsey Board of Education, and multiple construction and architectural firms as defendants. Daily Voice reached out to Ramsey's borough administrator and the school board. Ramsey BOE President Laura Behrmann told Daily Voice that the Board does not comment on pending litigation.

Yakata, a standout on both the football and wrestling teams, was in the boys’ locker room when the wall collapsed on top of him, causing him to sustain a ruptured anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments (ACL, PCL), a torn medial collateral ligament (MCL), dislocation with extensive edema, and more that required the teen to undergo a series of complex surgeries.

The suit alleges the wall, built during a 2021 renovation project by C.R. Construction , was improperly constructed without required reinforcing materials such as . The structure’s instability, according to the complaint, created a “dangerous condition” that school and borough officials “either knew or should have known” about. The suit alleges the contractors failed to follow safety standards and construction plans when erecting the wall between Nov. 16 and Nov. 30, 2021.

The number listed online for C.R. Construction was not in service when Daily Voice called Friday morning, Nov. 7.

Yakata's medical team said he will never be able to play competitive football or wrestle again, his lawyers said in a release.

“Due to the gross negligence of these parties, a young man’s athletic dreams have been shattered; his high school experience will never be the same,” said his attorney Arthur Lynch. “This tragic event was entirely avoidable if not for these careless actions of many.”

The principal and founder of Solutions Architecture, Frank Messineo, who was also named in the lawsuit, said he was unable to comment due to ongoing litigation.

Yakata and Fisher are seeking unspecified damages for what they describe as “serious, grievous, and permanent injuries” requiring ongoing medical care and rehabilitation.

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