Boys Lacrosse: Ridge rallies to top Watchung Hills

BERNARDS TWP. - Down 3-1 at halftime, the Ridge High School boys lacrosse team rallied for a come-from-behind victory over Watchung Hills in a Skyland Conference Delaware Division matchup on Wednesday afternoon.

The Red Devils (5-3) scored five goals in the third quarter and four goals in the fourth en route to a 10-6 victory over the Warriors (3-4). Kevin Quigley finished with two goals, including his 100th career goal, which he scored with 1:01 remaining in the game.

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"Today during school people were telling me about it, but I didn't really know where I was," Quigley said of his 100th goal. "It felt good to get it."

Ridge started the second half with a quick goal from Dan Skea to cut the lead to one, 3-2, but Brian Richmond and Gavin DeFuria connected for the third time of the afternoon less than a minute later to put Watchung Hills ahead 4-2. With 8:51 left in the third Matt Auletti scored on an assist from Ted Kapp to again pull Ridge within one, 4-3, and Quigley scored with 6:37 left to tie the game 4-4.

"I think our offense starting clicking a lot more," Quigley said of the second half. "We started moving the ball, and then in the first half we had a few turnovers that really didn't need to happen, unsettled turnovers that didn't need to happen, but in the second half we got composed and settled down a little bit, it helped us."

From there Ridge rode the momentum for two more goals from Kapp and Alex Choy to take a 6-4 lead after three quarters.

"We weren't playing our game in the first half and we started changing up our shots because the goalie was really good," Skea said. "In the second half we started shooting high and that was working. Defense was really good, I think we just got our momentum going and nothing could stop us."

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Richie McKenna opened the fourth quarter with a goal assisted by Quigley to put the Red Devils ahead 7-4, and with 7:35 remaining struck again for an 8-4 Red Devils lead. Richmond scored his fourth goal of the day on an assist by Sean Mullaney to pull the Warriors to within 8-5, but Skea and Quigley scored two more goals in the final 4:35 to put Ridge ahead 10-5.

DeFuria scored with 39 seconds remaining for the 10-6 final.

Ridge struck first in the first quarter on a goal by Skea, and with 1:01 left Richmond and DeFuria connected to tie the game 1-1. DeFuria and Richmond did it again in the second quarter, and a goal from TJ Pecoraro put the Warriors ahead 3-1.

"I think it shows a lot about us, no one is ever quitting, we show a lot of adversity," Quigley said. "We go down 3-1 and nobody ever quits. We know that we have the potential to come back in every game, we've done it in previous games and we have faith in all of us to come back."

Alex Alano won 14-of-20 faceoffs for Ridge.

The Red Devils have rebounded from starting the season 0-3 against the likes of Moorestown, Bridgewater-Raritan in overtime and Pingry, and have won their last five games.

"We knew they were going to give it their all, they're a tough opponent and they were going to give us all they got and we just wanted to get a good win going into the rest of our season," Quigley said. "We know we have a couple of tough opponents coming up, but we finished the second half well and going into the rest of the season we're feeling pretty good."

Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com; on Twitter: @laurenknego

Ridge 10, Watchung Hills 6

GOALS: (R) Skea 3, Quigley 2, McKenna 2, Auletti, Kapp, Choy; (WH) Richmond 4, Pecoraro, DeFuria; ASSISTS: (R) Kapp 2, Quigley; (WH) DeFuria 3, Mullaney; SAVES: (R) Harris 10; (WH) Simons 16.