OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City High School boys soccer team beat Middle Township 3-2 in overtime Wednesday, Sept. 11, at the Tennessee Avenue field in an unusual game.
The first score of the game, by Red Raider Anthony Evans, came after an apparent handball off a corner kick. The Middle Township players stopped and looked for a call from the referees, but there was no whistle so Ethan Pearson fed the ball back to Evans, who easily put it past the Panther goalie.
Neither referee was in good position to see the handball, acknowledging that to Middle coach Scott Kurkowski, who protested the goal, which came just over 20 minutes into the first half.
Six minutes later, a whistle in the box awarded Panther Eddie Hirsch a penalty kick, which he converted, tying the game.
Just over seven minutes into the second half, Ocean City’s Greg Guyon was on the attack in front of the Middle Township goal when the ball got to teammate Chase Bowman and ended up in the net. Although it was initially considered an own goal, Bowman was later credited with the score.
The Panthers tied it back up on a blast from Angelo Panzini.
In overtime, Brady Dahms scored to give the Red Raiders a 2-2 record.
Bowman and Tighe Olek were credited with assists in the game and Raider goalie had 7 saves in the win.
Guilherme Candido earned an assist for the Panthers and teammate Miles Stafford had 6 saves for the 2-1 team.
In the season opener, coach Aaron Bogushefsky’s Raiders fell 4-0 to St. Augustine Prep, followed that with a 3-1 win over Vineland on Sept. 5 and fell 2-1 to Williamstown on Sept. 7.
Against Vineland, Bowman had 2 goals, Pearson had 1 and an assist and Joey Goodman and Evans each had an assist. Fuller made 7 saves.
Bowman had the lone goal in the loss to Williamstown on an assist from Evans. Fuller made 4 saves in the game.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
