The Ocean City Nor’easters will attempt to make history on Saturday night in Philadelphia when they close out the 2022 regular season on the road. The Nor’easters (10-0-3) will take on Philadelphia Lone Star FC as the Storm will try to finish the regular season undefeated for the first time since 2004.

The match will take place at the South Philadelphia Super Site with kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Philadelphia will be providing a live video stream of the game without announcers. Click here for the live stream.

Entering the final weekend of the regular season, the Nor’easters are one of five remaining undefeated teams in the league. They clinched the club’s fourth Mid-Atlantic Division title two weeks ago and will begin their playoff run next weekend at site that has yet to be announced.

This will be the third meeting of the season between the two clubs. The Nor’easters defeated Lone Star 2-1 at Carey Stadium (“The Beach House”) back on May 27th. It extended Ocean City’s home opener winning streak to five games. Nicolas Cam Orellana scored the opening goal for the Storm and Alessandro Arlotti added what would be the game-winner in the 76th minute.

The second meeting came on July 6 when Ocean City traveled to South Philly and came away with a scoreless draw. Felix Schafer made four saves to earn his fourth clean sheet. While disappointed not to get the win, it was a special result for Nor’easters head coach Kevin Nuss, as the draw extended his personal coaching unbeaten streak to 19 games, which broke the club record. The record has since extended to 20 games with a streak that dates back to the 2019 season.

While the Nor’easters lead the all-time series (in all competitions) 4-1-1, the Storm can’t overlook Lone Star FC. Last year, the two teams met on June 23 and the Nor’easters boasted one of the club’s longest unbeaten streaks at 15 games, including 13 games unbeaten at home. Lone Star came into the Beach House and ended those streaks with a 2-1 win. Philadelphia only won three games last season, but that road win in Ocean City, America’s Greatest Family Resort, was easily their biggest win. This weekend, the Nor’easters enter the game against Lone Star riding a 14-game unbeaten streak and a club record 13-game road unbeaten streak.

In their last game, the Nor’easters completed a clean sweep of last year’s division champions, West Chester United. With a 2-0 home win over West Chester, the Nor’easters earned a third win over the Predators. MD Myers scored a pair of goals and Felix Schafer added his fifth shutout of the season and dropped his goals against average to 0.59.

If Schafer is able to earn a clean sheet on Saturday night against Philadelphia, he would break the single-season club record for goals against average and the team would also break the single-season record for team goals against average.. 

Alessandro Arlotti continues to be the Nor’easters’ top scorer with five goals and five assists. He leads the team in both categories. Out of those 10 scoring plays, six of them have been game-winners (2 game-winning goals, 4 game-winning assists), which is among the league leaders. Right behind him on the scoring chart is Nicolas Cam Orellana and MD Myers with four goals each.

For Philadelphia Lone Star, they are really ending the season strong. After suffering a four-game losing streak midseason, they have bounced back. Since then, they are unbeaten (2-0-2) in their last four games. The streak began on June 25 when they beat Lehigh Valley United, 4-2. Aboubacar Camara, who is ranks third on USL League’s Two’s Top Prospects list, broke a 2-2 tie with two goals in the final 18 minutes. (Ocean City has three players on the Top Prospects list: Ben Martino at 9th, MD Myers at 29th, and Alessandro Arlotti at 39th). Camara and Patrick Singbah are tied for the team lead with three goals. After holding the Nor’easters to a scoreless draw on July 6, they picked up one of their most exciting wins in team history. It was a rematch, also at home, against Lehigh Valley United where they saw a 1-0 halftime lead evaporate quickly in the second half, falling behind 3-1. But Lone Star scored four goals to complete the comeback and a 5-4 win over LVU. It was a bit of redemption after losing a lead to Real Central New Jersey on the road, and falling on a late game-winner, 5-4.

In their last game, Lone Star earned a draw against West Chester on Wednesday. The draw was meaningful for the USL League Two playoff race because by dropping points at home, West Chester United were eliminated from playoff contention.

The Philadelphia Lone Star were supposed to join USL League Two as an expansion team in 2020, but the pandemic has pushed their debut until 2021. But when the two teams met for the first time in league play last year, it wasn't the first time they had played. The first time they met was in the 2017 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup when Ocean City blanked Lone Star FC (back when they were under the name "Junior Lone Star FC"), 3-1 in the First Round of the tournament. The two teams met again toward the end of the 2019 season in an exhibition game when Lone Star were a member of the NPSL. The game finished in a 1-1 draw with Deri Corfe scoring the lone goal and Philadelphia's only tally was an Ocean City own goal. Ocean City and Philadelphia met three times last season with each team winning on their home field by the score of 2-1 in the first two meetings, and the Storm cruising to a 6-0 win in Philadelphia in the regular season finale.