Mustangs win three in Ocean City-Mainland Weekend

By TOM WILLIAMS

It was quite a weekend.

Ocean City and Mainland competed four times in a little over 48 hours and the Mustangs won three of them.

It started Friday in the pool at the Ocean City Aquatic and Fitness Center where the Raiders got their only win of the weekend – a 91-79 win in girls swimming (8-2). Andrea Teofanova won twice for OCHS, in the 200 and 500 freestyle. She also joined Claudia Scherbin, Olivia Scherbin and Alex Antonov to win the 400-meter freestyle relay.

Claudia Scherbin won the 50 freestyle for Ocean City with Emily Myers winning the 100 butterfly, Isabella Pagan the 100 backstroke and Brynn Bowman the 100 breaststroke. Katie McClintock was a double winner for the Mustangs (7-2), touching first in the 200 individual medley and the 100 freestyle.

The Ocean City girls (above) finished second in the South Jersey Invitational with the relay teams of Scherbin, Scherbin, Teofanova and Antonov finishing first in both the 200 and 400 freestyle relays.

Mainland (8-2) dominated the boys swimming dual meet, 107-63, with Destin Lasco, the New Jersey Swimmer of the Year last season, winning the 200 individual medley and 500 freestyle while also swimming on two winning relay teams. Ben Wiley supplied Ocean City’s only first place finish in the 50 freestyle but the Raiders (7-3) accomplished much more. Nate Hays broke three school records, Dolan Grisbaum set a new OCHS record in the 400 freestyle and Wiley qualified for the NJSIAA state meet with his time.

The next day, at the South Jersey Invitational, Hays broke school records in the individual medley and 100 breaststroke, Wiley won the 50 freestyle and the team (above) finished second among 30 teams.  

A little later on Friday, the Mainland boys basketball team (11-4) scored 16 unanswered points in the middle of the game and never looked back, winning a 73-51 decision over Ocean City (11-3). Angelo Barron scored seven points and Tom Zanaras five during that game-deciding run. Barron finished with 21 points, Jake Cook added 16, Zanaras 14 and Joe Massari 12. Donovan Graham (below) was Ocean City’s only double-figure scorer with a career-high 26 points on 11-for-19 shooting.

The complete boys box score is available here – http://www.oceancitysports.com/ocbbboxes.html.  

The win puts Mainland in first place in the Cape-Atlantic League’s National Conference with Ocean City dropping into a three-way tie for second place. The Raiders will host one of the other teams in that tie – Holy Spirit – on Thursday night.

The final Ocean City-Mainland contest of the weekend was the most spectacular – the girls basketball game between the Raiders and Mustangs before a sold out crowd in the Dixie Howell Memorial Gymnasium. Kylee Watson, the 6-3 junior center for Mainland (14-2), led the way to a 35-29 victory with 23 points, 11 rebounds, four steals and three blocks. She was the only player in the game to score in double figures. The Raiders (10-4) took brief leads in the middle of the game but were outscored, 16-6, in the third quarter. Ocean City, which shot only 25 percent, was led by Danielle Donoghue with eight points.

With the win, Mainland opened a two-game lead in the National Conference standings.

Brian Cunniff put together a photo gallery, below, and the box score for the girls game is available here – http://www.primeevents.net/2019shootout9box.html.    

The OCHS swimmers are hosting Washington Township this afternoon, the basketball teams play a girl-boy doubleheader in Wildwood at 4 p.m. tomorrow and the wrestlers (7-9) host Absegami on Wednesday night.

You can follow all OCHS teams in the Raider Sports Diary here – http://www.oceancitysports.com/OCDiary.html.