Erin O’Connor & The Battering Rams

The 2012 fall season is the season for big-time players to put up big-time numbers. Seriously. Don’t think so? Look around at every sport. Check football. Tyler Rouse is putting up numbers that we haven’t since Mike Hart (who had numbers we had never seen before). As a matter of fact, as long as they don’t make an early exit, Rouse may take some of those previously untouchable marks. Check boys soccer. Tyler Plows at Mt. Markham is putting up ridiculous numbers. Talk about when they put 7 on Sauquoit.. well, he put 7 on Sauquoit. That was a Friday evening game. They played day 2 of a back-to-back Saturday morning, and he hung 4. 11 goals in about 18 hours. Check girls soccer in Section 2. Brittany LaPlant of Queensbury just broke the school record for most career goals (72). Doesn’t sound like it’s a huge number… until I tell you she’s in 9th grade. However, none of these incredible numbers and seasons may compare to what the person I may mention the most, Erin O’Connor, is accomplishing. Now, realize that there’s a reason I mention her more than Mitt Romney mentioned the Winter Olympics and more than Obama says “uhh” before he speaks. The numbers she’s putting up are ridiculous. We’ll get to those numbers in a minute.

Let’s not forget what the team is accomplishing. After being #1 in the state all season, a loss to Poland has dropped them to #9 (what I think is too far losing 2-1 to a fellow top 10 team after you beat them 6-1, but that’s just me). I mentioned it in the previous MVT about Cooperstown comparing it to Bishop Grimes/MPH. Yeah, MPH just beat Grimes 2-1 too – that doesn’t mean that I see it happening again. They’re 14-2, outscoring opponents by a ridiculous 89-8. They’ve hung at least 9 on opponents 5 times (9 4 times, 11 once) and GK Megan Will and a defense spearheaded by Melanie Carlson have contributed to 9 shutouts this regular season. Besides the loss to Poland, their only other loss is a 2-1 in extra time to Holland Patent on a PK scored off a penalty that I will never agree with. Holland Patent is the #6 seed in a particularly strong Class B. The futures have done well for Remsen. Joleen Marfone & Lizzy Swasey among others have made key contributions. We talk so much about Erin without giving deserved credit to twin sister Ashley. For as many times as I’ve seen Erin score, I’ve seen Ashley play stellar balls through the D to give goal-scoring opportunities to Erin and others, and if no one’s on Ash, she can do it herself. Ashley is the best player on the vast majority of Class C & D teams. Erin’s got the team around her, and people forget that in the hoopla. However, there’s a reason Erin gets crazy shine. She earns the talk. Number time!

She’s scored so many goals this year, she forgot how many it was. She thought 50 – it apparently was 53. 3 goals may sound like a bit of a difference to forget, but to her, that’s a good half and a slightly below average game (about a 3.3 per game average). She’s had 10 games with at least a hat trick, 4 with at least 5, season high being 6… twice. Against Old Forge last week and Notre Dame early in the season. 53 in a season ties her for 6th in NYSPHSAA history for most goals in a season with Sarah Jones, a fellow upstate NY Class D player of the past, just across the Section 2 border in Ripepi’s country, St. Johnsville. That was in 2000. I’m going to go out on a limb and say Erin will score again this season. There’s only one time Section 3 has ever had someone score like this in a season – that was Courtney Spencer of Westhill, who put 59 through in 1999. By the way, Spencer led the section in scoring 3 straight years, 1st team all-state in Class B three times, state player of the year senior year, 3 state titles, starting in 8th grade, and she went on to play (and play a lot) at Syracuse University. Not bad company. She’s just a dozen goals away from tying the all-time record holder, Nicole Roberts of Tamarac. Info on her? Well, she did it back when I was born in ’91. Who cares about college for her? She went on to play in the WUSA, the first US women’s professional soccer league to play all players, and she made the USA women’s B team. If Remsen makes the run in the postseason that they’re expected to make, and Erin does what Erin’s been doing, a dozen goals is right in her wheelhouse. If my math is correct, she should now be at 172 career goals (damn homie). That puts her at #9 on that list, just passing miss WUSA Roberts. With 2 goals, she’ll make it to #7, passing Roberts’ high school teammate Meghan Wurster (whose name is all over the record books at the University of New England, a D3 program that was an NAIA at that point) and Stamford’s Mary Velan (who went on to Oneonta near her home, was a 4-time D3 All-American that graduated the school record-holder in points (169), goals (71), and assists (27), and continued her soccer professionally for Sky Blue FC, which at the time boasted the names Christie Rampone, Heather O’Reilly, Natasha Kai, and Kacey White). Reasonably, I feel that Erin could potentially challenge for the #5 spot, 16 goals away, and maybe even the #4 spot a goal ahead. If she does, that would give her the state record for most goals in a season by a few. By the way, the NYSPHSAA record-holder in career goals, Kaitlin Robbins, an ’07 grad of IHC, played at Syracuse too. See what kind of company Erin’s in? The Soda Fountain is damn good, but it’s no longer the main reason to find yourself in Remsen, because Erin O’Connor and the Remsen Rams are damn good too. In a couple weeks, I hope to be talking about a new #1 in the NYSPHSAA record books!

Jeff