Aidan Stieglitz (8) of Ridge celebrates with his teammates after his third touchdown of the night gave the Red Devils a 20-14 lead over Rahway in the North 1, Group 4 opening round on November 1, 2024 at Lee Field in Basking Ridge. (Photo: Marcus Borden)
On 20 carries, Aidan Stieglitz powered his way for 178 yards and all three of his team’s touchdowns in a 22-14 win for second-seed Ridge over visiting seventh-seed Rahway Friday night at Lee Field in Basking Ridge.
The Red Devils now move on to next Friday night’s sectional semifinals at home against third-seed Ramapo, which topped 6-seed Randolph 47-27 in their opening round game.
Stieglitz staked Ridge to a 7-0 lead on a one-yard touchdown run with 6:50 to go in the first half, but Rahway tied it up on Andrew Avent’s run from a yard out just over two minutes late.
That held until 49 seconds before halftime, when Stieglitz punched in a six-yard score to give the Red Devils a 14-7 lead at the break.
After a mostly scoreless third quarter, Jaquan Robinson scored from six yards out to knot the score at 14 with just 25 seconds remaining in the third.
Just 90 seconds into the fourth, Stieglitz saved his longest touchdown of the night for last … scoring from 26 yards out to give his team a 20-14 lead, then adding a two-point conversion to make it 22-14 with 10:30 to go.
The Ridge defense played bend-but-don’t-break football the rest of the way. Rahway moved the ball, but got stopped on fourth down with 4:30 left, but despite calling all three of their time outs, Ridge held onto the ball to pick up the win.
Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio analyst Marcus Borden, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen!
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