On the strength of a first half brace from MD Myers, and a strong defense, the Ocean City Nor'easters shutout long-time rival Reading United AC, 2-0, on Saturday night.

In his first start of the season, MD Myers (Rutgers / Delran, NJ) scored his first two goals of the 2022 campaign in the first 23 minutes of the match. Felix Schaefer (Santa Clara / Berlin, Germany) made six saves to earn the club's first shutout, and improved his record this season to 3-0-0.

With the win, the Nor'easters remain undefeated (3-0-1), and move into a first place tie with West Chester United in the Mid-Atlantic Division standings. Ocean City and West Chester are tied with 10 points, with the Storm having played two fewer games. The win also extends Ocean City's road unbeaten streak to nine games (dating back to 2019), and the Storm's unbeaten streak against Reading to four games (3-0-1). The Nor’easters’ club record for a road unbeaten streak is 10 which was set between 2004-2005.

After becoming the first Ocean City player in club history to score a goal in each of the first three games of a season, Alessandro Arlotti’s (Harvard / San Remo, Italy) goalscoring streak came to an end. However, his point streak continued as he delivered a beautiful through ball to Myers who received it near the penalty spot and fired it into the top right corner of the goal in the 9th minute.

Abdi Salim (Syracuse / Buffalo, NY), who had a man of the match-level performance on the backline, contributed to the offense on the second goal. A ball was played in off a free kick and Salim headed it down to the center of the box where the ball found Myers who headed it home to make it 2-0 in the 23rd minute.

After the second goal, Reading made some adjustments to make things more difficult for Ocean City. The Nor’easters continued to put together a solid first half with some exceptional teamwork but were unable to add to the lead.

“The first half was a great team effort,” said Nor’easters head coach Kevin Nuss. “We worked extremely hard and were extremely organized. We created a number of chances but weren’t sharp enough to exploit them.”

Reading’s adjustments, combined with Ocean City’s defensive approach kept the game scoreless the rest of the way.

“We were more organized defensively [in the second half], but we were still were able to create a number of chances,” said Nuss. “We made some subs to give us some more defensive structure and work rate.”

Saturday’s win was relatively rare in the long-time rivalry between Ocean City and Reading. This was the Storm’s second straight road win over United. The Nor’easters have only had one streak of consecutive road wins over Reading and that was a six-game road winning streak from 1998 – 2001.

The Nor'easters return home for their next game when they host Lehigh Valley United on Wednesday at Carey Stadium ("The Beach House") in Ocean City, N.J., America's Greatest Family Resort. Kickoff for every home game is at 7 p.m. The best way for fans to buy tickets for Wednesday's home game at the Beach House is online at OceanCityFC.com, or at the Carey Stadium gate.