By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – In a game that didn’t fully satisfy either coach, the Red Raiders boys soccer team outlasted Mainland Regional, 3-2, Saturday morning at Carey Stadium.
After hanging onto a 2-1 first-half lead for more than 32 minutes of the second half, Ocean City’s John Lindsay came in on a breakaway to beat Mainland goalie Jeff Thomas and give the Red Raiders an insurance goal with 7:52 remaining.
It turned out they would sorely need that goal and the 3-1 lead.
Mainland went into high gear as both teams kept pressing as time ticked away. A needless Ocean City penalty in front of its own goal with just more than 3 minutes to go gave the Mustangs the opportunity they needed.
(This is a reminder to players to keep their cool: referees often miss an unfair play – a shove, perhaps – that leads to retaliation, but the referees usually catch the retaliation and penalize that.)
Ocean City players formed a wall to stop the penalty shot. As the Mustangs Luca Bongiovanni approached the ball, the players jumped up to stop an expected high shot on net. Instead, the ball went low to the left, beating Red Raiders keeper Kyle Plenn, making the score 3-2.
In the final three minutes, both teams made deep attacks on the opposing goals. Mustang junior Joey Cino, who in the first half evened the score at 1-1 after the Red Raiders Ori Levy Smith’s goal, had a chance in a scramble at point-blank range, but Plenn got his hands on the ball to preserve the win.
Levy Smith also was credited with the assist on Ben Steiger’s goal that gave Ocean City its 2-1 first-half lead.
Mainland coach Alex Weidman liked his team’s finish, but not the start.
“We’re a little inexperienced, playing against an Ocean City team that’s relatively good. They put us on our heels. I think we bounced back. We’re definitely resilient. We’re a resilient bunch,” he said, “but I want the guys to get after it for all 80 minutes. Right now we’re just not doing that.
“Overall we showed some fight and showed some spirit and I’m proud of them for that,” he added.
“Our boys have to learn to play the whole 80 minutes. I know with the whole COVID situation and everything that maybe they’re not used to it, but that’s the tough part about high school sports. It’s unforgiving,” Weidman said. “An Ocean City team comes out and plays for all 80 minutes and puts you on your heels and you’re on the wrong side of a 3-2 loss.
“I think it is a good learning experience for our guys. A lot of our guys are new starters in new positions so we’ll get there, but I definitely want to see us play the whole 80 minutes and play the way we are finishing games,” Weidman said.
He credited both of his scorers.
“I think Joe Cino does a nice job for us on the attack. He’s always dangerous, causing problems for everybody. And then Luca Bongiovanni held us down in the back,” Weidman said. “He did a nice job in the back on defense, so shout out to those guys for battling the best that they could.”
Ocean City coach Aaron Bogushefsky said he “was happy about the win, but not how we went about it.”
“We did enough to get the job done today. I don’t think we managed the game very well. We allowed two poor goals to go into the net,” he said. “We have a lot to learn. I was happy with the result and how we were playing in some areas, but (there are) still plenty of areas for improvement.”
Bogushefsky said it is taking time for his players to click.
“With all this lockdown this year a lot of kids didn’t play club soccer. And so we’re seeing the fitness in general and the touches are just a little bit off from where they usually are because they weren’t able to play year round,” he said. “I think there are a lot of things we have to learn on the fly right now. It was a very small preseason and we’re figuring it out as we go. I always want to end well. We want to play well during the season, but I want to win my last game. That’s always what we want to do.”
The coach said his boys have been buying into what the coaches are teaching, but it takes time to translate that into consistent action on the field.
“The execution may not be there yet, but then as we go throughout the year we get tighter and tighter and the execution and the idea work together and you see the full idea of what we’re trying to do as a coaching staff to teach these boys to play this style of soccer,” he said. “We’re starting to see that more and more but sometimes we revert back and we play maybe panicked at times, and I think that’s what we saw today.”
Bogushefsky singled out Kyle Harper, who provided the assist on Levy Smith’s opening goal.
“I thought Kyle Harper did really well today. He had a job offensively and defensively and I thought he got his job done well and was able to influence the game in our favor tremendously.”
The coach also said the team’s second goal “was textbook how we like to play. I said ‘you guys have the ability, but you guys have to be disciplined to play that way all the time.’”
He noted that over his years of coaching he has seen how younger teams have moments of greatness, and it’s just a consistency that’s difficult. “We are going to reach consistency on this team,” Bogushefsky said. “It’s just a matter of how long it will take and will we get it by the time playoffs come.”
Ocean City is 3-0 on the season and Mainland is 2-1. Plenn had four saves for the Red Raiders and Thomas had six for the Mustangs.
Ocean City was playing at Cape May Technical School Tuesday after the Sentinel went to press and is at Lower Cape May at 10 a.m. Saturday.
The Mainland boys are at Atlantic City Tuesday and will play at Egg Harbor Township at noon Saturday.