HILLSDALE—Congratulations to the Pascack Valley High School girls varsity soccer team, which finished the year with a 14-6-1 record and posted an impressive 9-1 record in the Big North National Conference. This secured the team its first league title since 2017.
The district tells Pascack Press that five players were recognized as first team all-league: seniors Cameron Dolan, Julia Conjour, and Tori Criscuolo, and juniors Tara Sewart and Amanda Polyniak.
Two players were named second team all-league: sophomore Celina Bussanich and senior Vanessa Rack. Junior Sarah Mastowski earned honorable mention all-league honors.
At the county level, said the district, Polyniak was named first team all county, while Criscuolo garnered second team all county honors and Conjour took third team accolades. Dolan and Stewart both attained honorable mention all-county distinction.
In addition to league-level recognition, Conjour earned first team all group 2 honors in the state of New Jersey.
In tourney action, the team reached the quarterfinals in this year’s Bergen County Tournament — and the semifinals in sectional tournament play, where they lost to River Dell, 1-0.
Pulling it all together with grace and good cheer was first-time varsity head coach Leah Jerome, who emerged as Big North National Coach of the Year.
In 2019 Jerome, a history teacher, was named Bergen County Teacher of the Year.
She told Pascack Press on Dec. 8, “I always said every game is a league championship. We went 9-1 in our conference and beat every team: We lost to Old Tappan once and came back and beat them on our home turf, which was a 2-0 victory against a really quality team, so that was a huge victory for us.”
She said of the team’s growth and performance, “I’m just so excited and I hope this is momentum for the future. It was a great season and a great group of girls, and we got the job done.”
Jerome said “I think from the very beginning we understood the task before us and understood every game was going to be a battle and that this year was going to be a grind because of the level of competition in our league games, in our county, and in our state games, so we just sort of had a collective goal about playing every minute of every game for each other and go as far as we could.”
She called out her senior leaders and said they’ve all been part of the program for four years. “They set the standard very high and conveyed to the other players that this was going to be a team that wanted something tangible to take away at the end of the year, and a league championship was really our goal.”
Looking ahead, she said, “There’ll be new faces; there’ll be people who fill in the roles we’re losing. So I look at it as a new opportunity to build on our success for next year.”
Teaching at PV since 2011, Jerome has coached at other districts, and most recently was at Immaculate Heart Academy as a JV coach. When there was an opportunity to coach here, she said, “It was like coming home. I teach here, and I’m Pascack Valley through and through, and there’s a lot of heart for the school. I’m just thrilled, very fortunate, to be able to coach in the district where I teach.”
She said, “I’m already committed to these students, and it’s nice to be recognized as coach in the building.”
Pressed on her Coach of the Year honor on the heels of her county Teacher of the Year nod, Jerome credited “a really supportive environment. I’m surrounded by the right people, I have a supportive administration, colleagues, students, so I feel like that’s wherein lies my success.”
She added, “I’m serious about soccer. I want people to know that if they’re soccer players this is a place to play and vie for championships — because that’s what we’re all about.”