Atlantic City FC wins first league match; West Chester and Junior Lone Star post wins

National Premier Soccer League play kicked off in our area last Wednesday with a match between the Keystone Conference’s two new expansion teams, Atlantic City FC and FC Monmouth.

Former Harrisburg City Islanders winger Cameron Vickers opened the scoring for Atlantic City FC in the 18th minute and Sidney Rivera added a goal in the second half for the Aces. Former Bethlehem Steel FC goalkeeper Matt Perrella recorded the clean sheet.

Evan Vare had a brace and Travis Cantrell and Miguel Ross both added goals in a 4-0 win for West Chester United on Saturday night at home over Hershey FC.

Philadelphia Union Academy grad Andrew Verdi had the clean sheet in goal for West Chester, which avenged a 4-1 loss to Hershey last June that proved detrimental to their bid for playoffs in their first NPSL season.

Junior Lone Star FC and Torch FC rounded out Week 1 of Keystone Conference action on Sunday night (New Jersey Copa FC and Atlantic City FC postponed their Saturday math because of weather).

Playing their first game at the South Philadelphia Super Site — and first in Philadelphia since their first NPSL season in 2012 — the Stars exploded for seven goals. Anthony Allison led the way with a hat trick, Deron Joe had a brace and Nyakeh Kamara and Edward Slueue both contributed goal to the lopsided final scoreline.

Torch FC found a goal through Malik Parsons in the 64th minute but by then the Stars had already found the back of the net six times.

“Getting the three points from the first game was a top priority; therefore, we are happy as a group for that,” head coach Fatoma Turay said in a news release. “However, we had some glitches during the game we must clean up if we want to reach our ultimate goal. We will work hard again these few days and put a game plan together that we as coaches believe would give us the best chance to get all three points in our next game at Atlantic City FC.”

Junior Lone Star faces Atlantic City FC at 3 p.m. on Saturday at Stockton University. Torch FC and West Chester United play at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Palisades High School and Hershey FC visits Scranton University for Electric City Shock’s season opener next Wednesday.