The Ocean City Nor’easters will begin their 2022 USL League Two playoff run on the road this weekend. The Mid-Atlantic Division champs will take their undefeated record to Newport News, Va. where they will face the Long Island Rough Riders.

The game will take place at Townbank Stadium with kickoff scheduled for 5 p.m. Fans unable to make the trip can watch the game online through Lionsbridge FC's Facebook page.

The Nor’easters (11-0-3) just completed the club’s first undefeated regular season since 2004 and will take on the Rough Riders (11-2-1) who finished in second place in the Metropolitan Division. Ocean City is the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, while Long Island is the No. 5 seed. The winner will play either the host and No. 1 seed Lionsbridge FC or Vermont Green FC (No. 8 seed) in the Eastern Conference Semifinals on Sunday, July 24 at 7 p.m.

The Nor’easters and Lionsbridge FC are two of the four teams in the league that finished the regular season undefeated. In the history of the league (since 1995), there has only been 25 teams who have finished the regular season without a loss, and this is the first time that four teams have done it in the same year.

The Nor’easters are entering the postseason for the second straight season as the club seeks its first USL League Two championship. Despite having the fifth-most wins in league history, Ocean City has yet to lift the trophy. The Storm enter the weekend riding a 15-game regular season unbeaten streak and a club record 14-game road unbeaten streak.

The Nor’easters are led by their MVP candidate Alessandro Arlotti, who leads the team in goals (8) and assists (6), and either scored the game-winning goal or assisted on the game-winning goal in seven of the team’s 11 wins this season. Arlotti was one of two players to start every game this season and his seven game-winning plays is among the league leaders.

Goalkeeper Felix Schafer had a historic season in net for the Storm. Schafer, who will play his college ball at Santa Clara this fall, finished 10-0-2 this season, the most wins since John McCarthy had 11 in 2012. He also broke the club record for goals against average, boasting a 0.55. That edged Pat Hannigan’s mark from the 2004 season. He also finished with five clean sheets, which is one shy of the club record of six set by Adam Edwards in 2007. As a team, the Nor’easters defense shattered the club record for goals against average with a 0.64. 

As frequent members of the same division, the Nor'easters and the Rough Riders have been playing each other since the two were professional teams. When they first met in 2001, Long Island was an A-League team (Division 2 pro) and the Nor'easters were a D-3 Pro League (Division 3) team known as the South Jersey Barons. Ocean City is 8-9-4 all-time against the Rough Riders, but the two clubs have met twice in some pretty big games. In the Second Round of the 2005 US Open Cup, the Nor'easters upset the Rough Riders, 4-0 when they were a USL Second Division (pro) team, 4-0. In 2009, Ocean City went on the road and knocked off Long Island in the opening round of the PDL (now USL-2) playoffs. The last time the two clubs met was back in 2019 when they were both members of the Mid-Atlantic Division. The last time they met was in the regular season finale in 2019 when the two teams finished in a 3-3 draw with Deri Corfe scoring a pair of goals to clinch the league scoring title and eventually the USL-2 MVP award.

This will be the 24th all-time meeting between the Nor’easters and the Rough Riders and the all-time series is tied at 9-9-5. 

The Rough Riders, like the Nor’easters, are a strong defensive team, having allowed less than a goal per game this season. They enter the weekend riding a five-game unbeaten streak, including winning their last four while outsourcing their opponents by a combined score of 13-2. Their offense is lead by a two-headed monster of Ryan Carmichael and Matthew Vowinkel. Both players come from Hofstra University, where they were the top two scorers on an impressive 2021 team that saw the Pride reach the Third Round of the NCAA tournament. Vowinkel, who was selected by FC Cincinnati in the 2021 MLS SuperDraft, leads the team with 11 goals, while Carmichael chipped in 10 goals and 3 assists. The two players have scored 21 of the team’s 40 goals this season. The team’s primary goalkeeper also hails from Hofstra, Wessell Speel. He has played in 12 of the team’s 14 games and boasts a 1.10 goals against average.