Sunday, July 7, 2013
OCEAN CITY, N.J. -- Another beautiful day greeted the Ocean City Nor’easters as they defeated the New Jersey Rangers 4-0 at Carey Stadium on Sunday afternoon. The win takes the Nor’easters back to the top of the table as rivals Reading United and the Baltimore Bohemians could only tie on Sunday night.
The Nor'easters took the lead 15 seconds into the game as Dwayne Reid stormed past two Rangers defenders and fired a curling right-footed shot into the top corner. The Rangers began to get back into the game but never really threatened the Nor’easters goal. At the other end in the 30th minute Reid had a shot saved, the rebound was passed by Emmanuel Kollie to Nick Perea, who flashed a shot just wide. Reid also went close, in a mirror-image of his earlier goal, only for his effort to this time hit the post and be cleared.
The Nor’easters came out firing in the second half but it was the New Jersey Rangers who had the best chance early on, forcing Michael O’Keeffe into a fantastic save from a close-range shot. The game swung the Nor’easters' way as Reid again broke the Rangers backline and curled the ball around the diving keeper to make it 2-0 just before the hour-mark.
The goal appeared to open the floodgates and the Nor’easters struck twice more in quick succession. Perea made it 3-0 with a hard driven volley low to the goalkeeper's left after a lovely pass from Ken Tribbett. Within 10 minutes it was 4-0 as Timothy Mulgrew was released down the left, and the midfielder chipped the goalkeeper from the left-hand corner of the penalty area. O’Keeffe continued his great form from his MVP display on Thursday with some world class saves from the former New Zealand Olympian to keep the clean sheet.
With the win the Nor’easters go top of the PDL's Mid Atlantic Division, and it is where Head Coach Tim Oswald demands that they stay as they defend their division crown
“We had a dip in form but we are now back in top gear and the score lines are showing this," Oswald said. "Our goals are being spread around which is great and shows that we can score in many different ways.”