Former Ridge athlete who died in ski accident was 'great teammate'

Those who coached Terrence Scott, a three-sport letterwinner from Ridge High School and a recent Rutgers University graduate who died in a skiing accident in Vermont on Saturday, recalled the 23-year-old as a "gentle" person and "great teammate."

Scott was a member of the varsity lacrosse, soccer and ski racing teams at Ridge, from which he graduated in 2010. He also played club lacrosse at Rutgers.

According to Scott's obituary, his family is comforted in knowing that he was with family and friends at the time of the accident, which occurred at Killington Resort.

Veteran Ridge ski race team coach John Fico, past president of the New Jersey Interscholastic Ski Racing Association, said for more than three hours on Thursday an "enormous line" of those paying their respects to the Scott family extended outside the door of the chapel of St. James Church in Basking Ridge, where visitation was held.

Fico said the outpouring of support from all facets of Scott's life was a testament to Scott and his family and illustrated that Ridge is "an amazing community."

"He was a really kind kid, just the nicest guy, really gentle and soft-spoken," Fico said. "As a competitor, though, he was incredibly fierce. He was a great teammate, supportive and willing to do anything you would ask him to do."

Scott was part of Ridge's state championship ski race and lacrosse teams in 2009 and 2010, respectively. He also played midfield and back on the 2009 Ridge soccer team which won a Skyland Conference championship.

"Terrence was a young man that had a large, tight group of friends who all knew how special and outgoing he could be," Ridge lacrosse coach Ken Marsh said. "As a lacrosse player, Terrence was a pleasure to coach. He would do whatever was asked of him. Midway through his senior year he realized that he could be a dominant lacrosse player. Once that clicked there was no turning back and as a consequence Terrence helped to lead our team to a Group championship. Terrence will be deeply missed by those that knew him."

Ridge soccer coach Ken Cherry, whose team also advanced to the semifinals of the NJSIAA Group IV and Somerset County tournaments in 2009, said Scott was "well endowed with athletic ability."

"He had an honest, hard-working approach to the game and practice, just one of those kids that you never had to speak to in terms of his work rate and trying to improve himself in practice," Cherry said. "He worked daily on his technical ability and his positional sets. He's one of those kids that worked really hard for the player next to him in the game. He really knew the meaning of teamwork and what it meant to be a good teammate."

Scott earned third-team All-Somerset County honors from the Star Ledger of Newark in lacrosse and All-State honors in skiing as a high school senior.

Mike Kinney, a veteran sports writer for MSGVarsity.com who has covered New Jersey high school lacrosse for 32 years, said Scott epitomized the tough team players Ridge has become renowned for producing.

"He was a very skilled midfielder," said Kinney, noting Scott scored 14 of his 24 goals as a senior during the last 10 games of the year, most of which occurred during the postseason.

"He was a solid scorer and could play on both sides of the field. He was just a great component to that (2010) championship team, not being a star, but a really durable and capable kid. He brought that athletic ability he had as a multi-sport kid who just didn't get fazed by stuff. He had so much poise in big games. He came up with big plays and he wasn't going to make a mistake."

Scott represented New Jersey at the 2010 Eastern Regional High School Championships in New Hampshire, skiing against competitors from Vermont, New Hampshire and elsewhere in the Northeast.

Killington Police Chief Whit Montgomery told MyCentralJersey.com that witnesses to Saturday's accident said Scott swerved to avoid another skier who had cut him off along an intermediate-level trail while trying to turn onto a connector trail. The maneuver sent Scott careening into a wooded area, where he struck a number of trees and lost his helmet upon impact.

"The witnesses could not give me a description of the other skier," said Montgomery, noting he interviewed Scott's twin brother Jamie, who said his sibling was an expert on the slopes.

Montgomery said a physician from Killington Medical Center and emergency medical technicians quickly responded to Scott, who was found unconscious.

"Unfortunately," Montgomery said, "he was pronounced dead before he made it to the hospital."

Scott earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering in May 2014 from Rutgers and worked for the past eight months as a process engineer for BAE Systems in Nashua, N.H., where the former resident of the Basking Ridge section of Bernards made his home.

Scott is the second Ridge graduate with connections to the high school's lacrosse programs whose death stunned the Ridge school community in the past two weeks.

United States Marine Capt. Stanford "Ford" Henry Shaw III, a 2002 graduate of the high school, was one of 11 people killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash during a training mission in Florida earlier this month. The 31-year-old Shaw captained Ridge's lacrosse team.

Funeral services for Scott will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, March 27, at St. James Church, 184 South Finley Ave., Basking Ridge, followed by interment at St. Bernard's Cemetery in Bernardsville.

Staff Writer Greg Tufaro: gtufaro@mycentraljersey.com