Two consecutive state titles for lady Devils By Walter J. O’Neill, Jr, photo by Sportshotswlb

Saturday night the Shore Regional girls’ varsity soccer team won their second consecutive NJSIAA Group 1 title with a 3-2 victory over Glen Ridge.

This was the fifth straight Group 1 final for Shore Regional. The Raiders of Glen Ridge have faced the Blue Devils three times in the past four years in the championship game. Shore now has two victories, Glen Ridge has one and both schools shared the title back in 2013. Last year it took double overtime for the Devils to beat Glen Ridge.

No overtime was needed this year. It didn’t even take the Devils two minutes to score the first point of the match. Julia Eichenbaum, freshman forward, kicked a rocket at the Raiders goal. The ball deflected off a Glen Ridge player and into the net for a 1-0 Shore lead at 1:12.

It took Glen Ridge 21 minutes to get their first goal and even the score at one goal each.

That fired up the Blue Devils who came back at 27:12 with a goal by sophomore forward Frankie McDonough and Liz Eichenbaum at 35:25 giving Shore a 3-1 advantage going into the halftime break.

During the second half the Raiders did shutdown the Blue Devils powerful offense, but were only able to score one additional goal.

Last year was the first time in the school history that a girls’ soccer team won a state title. Now, 12 months later they did it again. “We tell them at the first day of practice, that we are a team and our style of play is possession soccer. Everybody has to get involved,” said George Moutis, head coach of the Devils. He added that you can’t just possess the ball with one or two people. “You need 11 players even with your goalie.”

In the goal for Shore Regional was Julia Valinoti who made two good saves.