Day one of the Jimmy Ranieri Soccer Tournament at O’Neill High School. Thursday, Sept. 24, ended with both Raider varsity teams with impressive wins and heading to the championship games. It was a perfect evening.

Day two, Saturday, Sept. 26, ended with just two games being played – the championships – in rain and windy conditions. Both consolation games ended up cancelled.

In the end, the boys’ winner was the home-town O’Neill Raiders, winning the boys’ trophy for the third year in a row. And for the girls, the champ was Burke Catholic, winning the title for the second year in a row. The Raider girls came in second.

The tournament also featured varsity boys’ and girls’ teams from Ellenville, Chester and Red Hook. It was the fourth annual Jimmy Ranieri Tournament, in memory of the late Jimmy Ranieri, a standout soccer player on the Raider squad who passed away from pancreatic cancer several years ago.

His dad, Jim Ranieri, is a retired, long-time teacher and soccer (among other sports) coach at the high school. The senior Ranieri was on the track and around the field for every Raider game this past weekend, right at midfield for the boys’ first game – when it ended he called it “a good, clean game”.

The Raiders won that first game 3-0 over Ellenville, with all three goals coming from sophomore Ollie Buchheim – his ‘hat trick’ enthused Raider fans, who then stuck around for the girls’ game. Buchheim went on to win the boys’ MVP title for the whole tournament, after the boys’ defeated Red Hook 3-2 in the final game of the tournament. Goals in that game were by Jonathan Garcia, Joe Padula and Asher Dabkowski. Goalie David Osgood secured the victory with a literal last second save that, had he not made, the game would have gone into overtime.

In game one, the Raider girls defeated Chester 5-0 on two goals from Reagan Moulton and one each from Kaelyn Mitroka, Haley Mitroka and Anna Tilman, with assists from Haley Mitroka and Marin Conkey. Burke proved more of a challenge in the championship game, playing a fast game and blocking nearly every shot before it could get to the goal. Moulton, an eighth grader, said Burke was the first team that’s been able to shut down the Raider offense – she was right, the loss was the first for O’Neill this season. Moulton, when asked about the wind, said they definitely noticed it – “in the first half we were running with it, in the second half, against it, it was harder to keep possession of the ball”.

In game one Hailey Hall had three saves – Aislinn Fallon came in during the second half and had one save. Hall in the goalbox in both games was special for Ranieri, too – when he coached the team, Kenny Hall (now the boys’ varsity coach) was one of his goalies – Hailey is Hall’s daughter.

The soccer tournament – was to be followed by a golf tournament at the West Point Golf Course on Monday but got canceled to rain – is important to Ranieri, his wife LeeAnn as well as Jimmy’s mom, Doris, and his brothers Nick and Tony, all of whom were on hand through the weekend.

“It gives exposure to the game of soccer,” Ranieri said, “as well as bringing so many people who were important to Jimmy back together.” He said that a friend of Jimmy’s from Kansas was flying in for the golf tournament, and peppered around the field both nights of the tournament were family and friends of the Ranieri’s, as well as former players, wearing various years of O’Neill soccer gear.

He choked up a bit, but added that the tournament has two additional purposes - bringing awareness that cancer sometimes strikes younger people, and helping a local student-athlete get to college with an annual scholarship.

Two of Ranieri’s former athletes – Gabe O’Connell and Hall – help with the weekend’s events, with O’Connell working on the golf tournament and Hall working with O’Neill’s athletic director to secure teams for the soccer portion.

Helping to raise some of that scholarship money was a bake sale at Thursday’s tournament – volunteers Jody Downey and Sue Lent manned it that evening, doling out what buyers said were “delicious peanut butter brownies” and other treats. On night one, when the boys’ game ended, players from both O’Neill and Ellenville flooded the table.
LeeAnn Ranieri was grateful to many.

“The wind and rain didn’t stop the O’Neill Raiders from another successful Jimmy Ranieri Tournament,” she said. “Thank you to both teams and those who donated to our bake sale.

Thank you to everyone who helped set up and work the tables, the staff at O’Neill for making sure it went smoothly, the visiting teams for your support and conversation and a huge shout out to Mr. Alexander, Coach Hall and Coach Leska for remembering Jimmy and holding the tournament each year.”

Because O’Neill has two full-size athletic fields with lights, on the first day games were played on the front (Debbi Crowe) field while the Raiders were in action on the lower (Waldo Wood) field. The championships were on the Wood field.