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BOYS PHOTO GALLERY: In soccer shootouts, OCHS girls advance, boys fall just short

By TOM WILLIAMS

Penalty kick shootouts – some people love them, lots of others don’t.

Today they worked both ways for the Ocean City High School soccer teams.

The girls soccer team (14-5-3) tied Toms River East, 1-1, at Carey Stadium in the NJSIAA Group 3 Tournament but advanced to the semifinals by winning the penalty kick shootout, 4-3.

But at the Tennessee Avenue Complex, the boys soccer team (15-5-1) also completed two overtimes in a 1-1 tie but lost the penalty kick shootout to Cherry Hill West, 6-5, to end its season.

Kelly Halliday’s OCHS girls, the defending South Jersey champions, will now face the Moorestown-Cherry Hill West winner on Tuesday. Those two teams are scheduled to play tomorrow. Moorestown is the No. 1 seed.

The way the girls game started it seemed unlikely it would end in a low-scoring tie. Ocean City’s Delaney Lappin scored her 12th goal of the season on an assist from Faith Slimmer in the first 10 seconds of the game. But the Raiders didn’t score again and Toms River East used a second half goal to tie the score.

It was also Lappin who booted home the decisive fourth penalty kick in the shootout that sent OCHS on to the South Jersey semifinals. She gave the Raiders a 4-3 lead and East’s shot to tie it sailed high. The first three penalty kicks in the shootout were scored by Anna Devlin, Tanis McDonnell and Suzy Dietrich.

Abbey Fenton made five saves in goal for Ocean City.

Aaron Bogushefsky’s boys fell behind Cherry Hill West, 1-0, at halftime but Luke Varallo scored his 11th goal of the season in the second half to tie the game. They not only played two scoreless overtimes but extended the shootout before determining a winner.

West advances to the South Jersey semifinals on Monday at Pinelands, which upset Mainland, 3-2, in another quarterfinal today.

Brian Cunniff put together a Photo Gallery of today’s action at Tennessee Avenue, below.

Check out the daily results and schedules of all OCHS teams in the Raider Diary – http://www.oceancitysports.com/OCDiary.html.