Mustang Murray scores 6, but Red Raiders come back
By CLYDE HUGHES/Special to the Sentinel
OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City girls lacrosse team rallied from a second-half deficit Tuesday, May 25, to edge rival Mainland in the regular season finale at Carey Stadium 11-10, propelling them into the South Jersey Group III playoffs.
The Red Raiders, who finished the coronavirus-shortened regular season 10-3, played at home against Jackson Memorial Tuesday in the first round of the playoffs.
The Mustangs, which ended their regular season 11-4, opened up the first round of the South Jersey Group III playoffs at home on Tuesday, playing Brick Township.
“We talk all the time about the game of lacrosse being the process of momentum swings,” Ocean City coach Lesley Graham said. “We want to make sure we’re always on the right side of that momentum. When we feel that it’s not going our way, we make some changes, whether it’s a time out or changing personnel.
“They executed the game plan and didn’t get freaked out or get frantic and we came out with the victory. I think I blacked out for part of it, I’m not quite sure.”
Grace McAfee scored 4 goals, often coming at critical times when the Red Raiders needed a lift. The winning shot, though, came from Summer Reimet with 3:50 left to go in the contest to break a 10-10 tie in the hard-fought contest. Ocean City was able to run out the clock over the final minutes to secure the victory.
“I think we had to just work together as a team because we knew it would be a close game,” McAfee said. “I think we came out with more energy. I think at that point there was no other option; we had to win this game. Everybody on the sideline was pumping us up and it was our only choice.”
The loss dashed an impressive performance by Mainland’s Casey Murray, who scored 6 goals. Murray at times seemed unstoppable driving to the net against Ocean City’s defense. Murray, though, was injured on Reimet’s goal and had to leave the game briefly.
“That’s the game of lacrosse,” Mainland coach Kelly Klever said. “You can score a goal from the draw in less than 10 seconds. I told the girls at the end that they played hard and did everything that we asked. It was almost like we didn’t lose but ran out of time.”
In fact Ocean City had to fight back from an early 4-1 deficit and, more critical, a 10-8 disadvantage with 7:18 left in the game after a goal by the Mustangs’ Juliana Medina. Mainland had led most of the second half, spreading out its offense to create scoring opportunities.
With the game tied at 8-8, Mainland took its last lead with 9:50 left in the game with a Charlotte Walcoff goal. That with Medina’s goal appeared to give the Mustangs the momentum late in the game.
“As a coaching staff, we felt there was a little unwarranted urgency in our attack so we called a timeout,” Klever said. “We let them know there was a lot of time left, spread out behind the goals and they did exactly what we asked that benefited us at that time of the game.”
Down by two goals, Ocean City all of the sudden seemed to find a second gear. Less than 30 seconds after Medina’s goal, McAfee found the back of the net to cut Mainland’s lead to 1. The Red Raiders quickly tied the game at the 6:31 mark on a Racheli Levy-Smith goal.
Murray scored 3 of Mainland’s first 4 goals as the Mustangs took a 4-1 lead with 12:37 left in the first half.
That set up Ocean City’s first comeback in the game. McAfee scored her first goal off of a rebound at the 8:10 left. Alexis Smallwood moved the Red Raiders within one score on her second goal with 6:57 left before halftime.
Mainland appeared to get the momentum back on Murray’s fourth goal with 3:42 left to improve the Mustangs’ lead to 5-3. After a penalty left Mainland one girl short, the Red Raiders scored 3 goals in short order over the one-minute stretch to take the lead by halftime.
Levy-Smith started the comeback with her goal at the 1:53 mark followed by back-to-back goals by McAfee, the first at the 1:29 mark and the second with 1:04 left. That second goal gave Ocean City the lead for the first time 6-5.
Mainland appeared to find its footing coming out of halftime behind Murray. Her goal at 22:35 in the second half pulled the Mustangs even with the Red Raiders 6-6. She followed up with another goal less than a minute later for the lead.
Ocean City’s Chelsea Stack tied the game once again at 7-7 with 18:11 remaining, where it stayed tied over the next five minutes, building the drama toward the game’s conclusion. Medina’s goal at the 12:44 mark to give Mainland the lead was short-lived as Smallwood returned the favor with 11:55 remaining in the contest.
“We are a young team,” Graham said. “We only had two returning varsity players out of 24, but all season long we talked about whenever the other team scores or when something happens that isn’t in our favor, instead of looking at it as an obstacle, we look at it as an opportunity.
“We want to take all of those opportunities and remember to take a deep breath and control what we can control and follow the game plan,” Graham said.
McAfee said she hopes effort will aid them in the tough games to come in the post-season.
“It shows that if we work as a team we can beat teams like this,” McAfee said. “At times, we have not played up to our full potential and I think this game we came out and showed what Ocean City lacrosse is all about.”
