As the 2022 USL League Two season heads down the home stretch, one of the biggest games in the Mid-Atlantic Division will take place on Wednesday night.

The first place Ocean City Nor’easters will take their undefeated record north to play against second place West Chester United. It is a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference Semifinal when WCU, last year’s division champion, ended Ocean City’s playoff run with a 1-0 win.

This will be the second meeting of the season with Ocean City winning 2-1 at Carey Stadium (“The Beach House”) in dramatic fashion back on May 29. In that game, Nicolas Cam Orellana (Keiser Univ. / Santiago, Chile) came off the bench and scored the game-winning goal deep into second half stoppage time.

A win for either team would dramatically shift the race for the Mid-Atlantic Division title. If Ocean City wins, it would put them seven points clear of second place West Chester with four games to play and would clinch the season series, giving Ocean City a crucial tiebreaker. If West Chester wins, it would pull them to within one point of first place.

Fans unable to make it to Kildare’s Turf Field in West Chester, Pa. for the game can watch the game live online. A link will be provided on the Nor’easters’ social media and at OceanCityFC.com. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.

In their last game, Ocean City had their league-best seven-game winning streak come to an end, but their unbeaten streak continued with a 1-1 home draw against Reading United AC. The Nor’easters are riding a nine-game unbeaten streak entering Wednesday’s game, and 10 games unbeaten dating back to last season. It was their 55th all-time meeting with their rivals, which is the oldest active rivalry in the entire United Soccer Leagues. Nick Pariano (Duke / Philadelphia, PA), the only Ocean City player who has played every minute of the season, scored his first goal of the season. Felix Schafer made three saves to keep his personal record undefeated.

Alessandro Arlotti (Harvard / San Remo, Italy) leads the Nor’easters in scoring with four goals and four assists. He also leads the team in game-winning plays. Arlotti has one game-winning goal and three game-winning assists. Nicolas Cam Orellana is tied with Arlotti in goals with four with two assists (2 game-winning goals, 1 game-winning assist) and he has done this as the team’s super sub with eight games played (two starts) and just 209 minutes played.

Felix Schafer has been solid in goal, starting the last four games (3-0-1) and five of the last six.

Another addition to the streak watch is with Nor’easters head coach Kevin Nuss who had his personal coaching unbeaten streak extend to 16 games dating back to the 2019 season. The club record for a coach is 18, set by Dan Christian during the club’s undefeated regular season in 2004.

West Chester is Ocean City’s main opposition for the Mid-Atlantic Division title and that’s because they’ve caught fire over the last three games. After starting the season 3-2-1, the Predators have rattled off three straight wins by a combined score of 11-1. They picked up road wins over Real Central New Jersey (1-0) and Philadelphia Lone Star FC (5-1) before thrashing Reading United AC last Tuesday (June 21) by the score of 5-0. With a 2-0 lead early in the second half, Seidu Shamsudeen came off the bench to score a hat trick in just 36 minutes of action to break the game open. With those three goals, Shamsudeen is tied with Dominck Bachstein for the team lead with four goals.

After Wednesday’s game, West Chester will have a tough task to chase the Nor’easters down. They have to play three straight road games before the regular season finale at home against Philadelphia Lone Star on July 13.

West Chester United, which was founded in 1976, has quickly become one of the top amateur clubs in the region since their first season of their adult soccer program in 2008. And while they have a long list of accomplishments in various leagues and tournaments, last year was United's first season as a member of USL League Two. Their inaugural season was a successful one, winning the Mid-Atlantic Division title with an 11-1-2 record.

For the first time in club history (and what is very rare in league history), Ocean City played against West Chester United four times. The two teams met three times in the regular season and once more in the postseason. Ocean City handed WCU their first (and what turned out to be their only) loss in the Storm's home opener on May 23 by the score of 2-1. The two teams would share a point after a scoreless draw at West Chester on June 16, which gave Ocean City an 8-game unbeaten streak to start the season (the best start since 2004). The two teams would meet in a crucial late-season matchup in Ocean City with WCU winning 2-1 which clinched the division title for them, and clinched second place for the Nor'easters. The two teams would meet for the fourth time in the Conference Semifinals with West Chester edging the Nor'easters 1-0 on a neutral field in Leesburg, Va.