BETHLEHEM, Pa. - The Northampton men's soccer team picked up their 5th consecutive victory with a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Ocean County College on Saturday afternoon at the Spartan Soccer Complex. 

The Vikings got on the board first, as Jayson Nardone tapped home a hard drive from Adal Garcia, to give Ocean a 1-0 lead.

The Spartans evened the match at 1-1 at the 20 minute mark as Elijah Ejiofor (Gonesse, France/Pocono Mt. West) and Moize Baraka (DRC Congo/William Allen) played a quick two-man game up the wing, with Baraka feeding Ejiofor for the equalizer. 

The two teams would enter halftime deadlocked at 1-1, after multiple chances for both sides were thwarted by the respective defenses. 

Northampton controlled play early in the second half with midfielder Brendan Nye (Catasauqua, PA/Catasauqua) and Wisdom Ntona (Johannesburg, South Africa/Queens) each creating great scoring opportunities, but to no avail. 

Gershon Bangura (Greencastle, PA/Greencastle) was able to force the Ocean defense into an error late in the contest, drawing the Viking keeper out of the goal, and finding Alessandro Castaneda (Cali, Columbia/Easton) for the eventual game-winning goal with just 4 mintues to play. 

The Spartan defense was able to hang on down the stretch as Northampton picked up a crucial cross-over victory.

Omar Zatar (Paterson, NJ/Pocono Mt. West) made 3 saves between the pipes for Northampton. 

The win moves Northampton to 5-1-0 overall and 4-1-0 in Region 19.

Ocean falls to 3-3-0 overall and 3-3-0 in the Region.

The Spartans hit the road on Tuesday September 24th with a trip to Blue Bell, Pa. to face Montgomery County Community College (3-0-1) at 4pm.