OCEAN CITY — John Lindsay scored a goal and two assists to lead Ocean City High School over cross-bay rival Mainland Regional 4-2 in boys soccer Monday, Sept. 20.
“He makes the game fun to watch for me. It raises the level of the entire team so in every way it’s great,” Ocean City coach Aaron Bogushefsky said of Lindsay.
Mainland coach Alex Weidman also noted the play of Lindsay, saying he is “unbelievable, a really good player.”
“I give all credit to Ocean City and what they are building and what they are doing and they did an excellent job today,” Weidman said.
Paul Tjoumakaris opened the scoring in the first half, Ori Levy-Smith made it 2-0 and Lambros Koutsfetsoulis made it 3-0 before Lindsay iced the game with 12:17 remaining.
Mainland got goals from Aidan Clark and Alex Wise.
The Red Raiders played a high line and applied a lot of pressure on the Mustang players, who scrambled to get a pass off and often lost possession or cleared the ball downfield.
Ocean City used ball-control skills and possession to wear down Mainland’s defense, eventually working the ball into position to score.
The Red Raiders’ persistence finally payed off when junior Tjoumakaris beat Mustang goalkeeper Jeff Thomas from in front of the net after a ball played to the corner was crossed to him at 31:05 of the first half. About 10 minutes later, Thomas came up with a big save on the good opportunity by sophomore Wade Hudak.
Ocean City continued to possess well until about 10 minutes left in the half, when Mainland finally got organized and started connecting some passes. The run of strong play earned the Mustangs a corner kick with 16:30 remaining in the first but the wind made long balls difficult to deliver accurately and Ocean City cleared it out.
With just under 13 minutes remaining, junior Ethan Rovins cranked a free kick from about 35 yards out that made it through the crowd and forced a save from Red Raiders goalkeeper junior Evan Schweibinz. Shortly afterward, junior Keenan Crousillat made a diving header that Schweibinz had to go down to the corner to save. Ocean City regained its composure and rode out the half without giving up a goal.
Lindsay, who had so far been quiet, came out firing in the second half, taking a breakaway that Thomas saved but sending a message that he was on the prowl for a goal.
About 8 minutes into the second half, Rovins made a terrific play to keep the ball in and advance it into the attacking zone, where Mainland scored but the offside flag went up and offsides was called.
Just 2 minutes later, it was the Red Raiders putting the ball into the back of the net when Levy-Smith scored on an assist from Lindsay.
Ocean City had Mainland on the ropes and delivered another hard blow at 29:02 when Koutsfetsoulis took a pass from Lindsay and put it over the head of Thomas to make it 3-0.
“We’re a hungry team and every opportunity we get we are going to pounce on it,” Lindsay said.
The Mustangs did not give up nor give in, though, and made it a game when Clark made it 3-1 with 14:37 left to play.
“We didn’t want to fold. We knew it was going to be a battle. We knew that they had some talented players, some talented seniors, but we just wanted to make them earn it. We’ve been talking about that in practice that if anybody’s going to beat us they are going to have to earn it and they did today,” Weidman said. “We’re going to come back better because we learned a lot of lessons.”
But a couple of minutes later, Lindsay scored his goal to make it 4-1 with 12:17 left, sticking a dagger in Mainland’s hopes of a comeback.
“We’re playing really good right now and I’m really proud of the team how well we’re moving the ball,” Lindsay said.
Wise scored with 3:16 remaining but it was too little too late for the Mustangs.
“I’m happy with their fight — yeah, we’ve got a lot of things to work on — but there’s no way to get experience but to play so we’ve got to take our lessons. The best way to learn is to fail and Ocean City took it to us today,” Weidman said.
Ocean City improved to 4-0 and Mainland fell to 2-1 on the young season.
The Red Raiders are set to play Thursday at Sterling High School of the Colonial Conference (4-0), while the Mustangs’ next game is Wednesday at Cedar Creek High School in Egg Harbor City.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff