OCEAN CITY – It has been a few years since their last South Jersey title and now the Ocean City Red Raiders are ready to compete for a sectional title June 9 after a resilient win over Allentown High School in the semifinals.
Ocean City faced adversity from the start as Allentown scored five unanswered goals in the South Jersey Group II semifinal at Carey Stadium June 4. With their season on the line, the Raiders rose to the challenge and toppled Allentown 9-6. Kevin Entress led all scorers with three goals and said he was happy with how he and his teammates responded in the game.
“With them going on a 5-0 run we could have easily been down on ourselves and packed it in right there, but we just stayed positive the whole time,” Entress said. “We trusted what we were doing and what we were being told from our coaches and buried the shots we had to to come out with the win.”
The first half of the game was filled with both defenses creating turnovers. Allentown turned a couple of untimely Ocean City turnovers into a 5-2 lead in the second quarter, but the Raiders responded with a nearly identical run.
Entress and the Raiders did most of their damage with a fast-paced offense that quickly got shots off before the defense could get in position.
Goalie Timmy Windfelder kept the Allentown run from growing any larger and assisted in getting the ball back to Entress and Liam Kazmarck, who scored in transition to cut the lead to 5-4.
The Raiders had to overcome a brilliant face-off specialist in Brian McCaffery, who boasted a 91 percent face-off win ratio this season. Right before halftime, McCaffery won the face-off but was surrounded by Raiders who got him to cough it up with a minute left. After a timeout, Otter Donohue got one last shot off with three seconds on the clock for the 5-5 tie at the break.
Allentown’s offense was completely shut down after its hot start and scored only one more time for the remainder of the game while Entress and the Ocean City offense kept firing on all cylinders.
The Raiders extended their own unanswered goal streak to as many as six goals and completely overcame their slow start.
Ahead by two, Entress scored his last goal needed for a hat trick to start the fourth quarter. With a solid lead in hand, the Raiders safely let the clock tick down and keep their season alive for at least one more game.
“We had a great game plan for these guys and a good practice leading up to it that gets us further into our season,” Entress said.
It was their toughest test of the playoffs so far as they won their first two games by a combined score of 34-0.
With the win, Ocean City advanced to its first sectional title game in four years Tuesday evening after the Sentinel sports section went to press. (See story at ocnjsentinel.com.)
Ocean City won the 2021 South Jersey Group III title with a 9-6 win over Shawnee. This year, the Raiders, the No. 1 seed in the Group II sectional, host No. 2 Manasquan (12-6).
The teams played in the regular season last year with Manasquan taking the 13-6 win.
Mainland falls
in semifinals
The Mainland Regional High School boys will remember their season as Cape-Atlantic League tournament champions after falling to No. 2 seed Moorestown (11-8 Olympic League) in the South Jersey Group III semifinals.
The Quakers won 14-3 over the Mustangs, who finish with a 14-9 record.
Moorestown shut out Mainland 11-0 in the first half, but the Mustangs were able to stalemate the Quakers 3-3 in the second.
Ford DeSalle had two goals and Ryan Scannell one in the loss.
Scannell, a sophomore, finished the season as the scoring and points leader. He had 50 goals and 45 assists for a team-leading 95 points. Senior Joe Eyde was second in points with 80, courtesy of 41 goals and 39 assists; and senior Liam Kennedy was third with 47 goals and 14 assists for 61 points.
Junior Jack Gregory had 43 goals and 13 assists; senior Dylan Grant had 11 goals and 21 assists; and DeSalle 9 goals and 22 assists.
Junior Garrett Chew, in goal, made 152 saves, and sophomore goalie Jon Berk had 38.
Mainland finished just behind Ocean City in the CAL.
– STORY and PHOTO by WILLIAM TRUITT/For the Sentinel
