Nauset Storm Rally From Traffic-Induced Forfeit With Goal Frenzy

NORTH EASTHAM – Everyone — everyone — knows how pervasive, infuriating and debilitating traffic on Cape Cod during the summer can be.

That natural law of the land became all the more sour for Nauset Storm of the Cape Cod Soccer League in recent weeks. An accident by the Sagamore Bridge earlier this month brought cars to a crushing standstill, and players couldn’t make it in time for their 6 p.m. match at Nauset Regional High School. The team had to concede as a result.

Nauset, though, has since that forfeit scored 17 goals and allowed none across two wins — most recently an 11-0 drubbing of Breakers FC on Sunday. They’ve clearly put the vehicular nightmare in their rearview mirror.

“We're rock solid,” manager John McCully said. “I think we're the best team in the league.”

The cruise control win started for Nauset (6-2-1) in the seventh minute, when James Stevens sent a free kick over the top to Gregory Codjoe, who dished to Cody Holbert, who scored. If only Holbert and everybody else knew what had just begun. Holbert would finish with five goals among Nauset’s double-digit total.

Seven minutes later, Holbert scored again, this time snuffing out a ball from Breakers goalkeeper Raldo Mowatt and firing past a trailing defender.  Five more minutes went by, and Nauset — their pressing giving Breakers fits — gained possession in the midfield, and Holbert put another shot into the back of the net.

Nauset’s fourth score of the evening at the 25th minute was a reprieve from the box score for Holbert. This time, Charlie Cushing pocketed a cross from Omari Perry. 

By this point, what Nauset was doing on the pitch was elementary. Benjamin Kane scored off a pass from Holbert at the 28th minute.

 Already with five scores approaching the end of the first half, Nauset could have, in reality, had even more. Mowatt, as per his usual performances, made multiple challenging saves, and Nauset shot a couple good chances off frame, like when Patrick Phelan, the former pro, blasted a free kick from the edge of the box over the crossbar or when the left post rejected Perry’s clean look.

A Perry corner headed in by Phelan added one more to Nauset’s tally, for good measure, to end the half.

“This was good to get things rolling like we did,” McCully said. “Nobody getting hurt. We're nice and fresh. We're ready to go.”

 Any convictions that the second half might play out differently from the first were pretty instantly put to rest once Holbert scored again only a couple minutes later. Holbert’s final goal — the fifth — fully encapsulated his night Sunday and the notion that everything was coming up Nauset.

It wasn’t even supposed to be an attempt at the goal. Holbert took a touch deep near the right sideline, saw the Breakers keeper out from his line and planned to chip a shot right at him. But as Holbert looked down at the ball, he heard Cushing yelling his name from the middle. The strike subsequently came out as a twisting, floating pop-up, delivered by its sender with the intentions of a pass. 

“So I was like, ‘All right, I'm putting this in. I'm crossing this,’” Holbert said. “So it was a cross, but my first intention was to chip it, and then I just got lucky.”

The knuckling, lofted kick designed for Cushing instead bounced impossibly, but perfectly, into the top left corner. Because when it’s going good, it’s going good.

Nauset added three more — goals by Francis Amani, Colin Riley-Perec and Colby Kyle — before the game was called at the 70th minute. Coupled with a 6-0 win against Mid-Cape United a few days prior, the matches had to have been cathartic in the wake of the club’s traffic-induced forfeit at the beginning of July.

What happened was the accident by the bridge — which happened that morning — and ensuing traffic jam prevented players and referees alike from making their 6 p.m. start time. The league contacted McCully, who was at home watching the World Cup unaware of the mess over on the Upper Cape, to suggest the game be rescheduled. But players insisted they’d make it in time.

The game was pushed back 30 minutes. The services of a new set of referees, a local crew, were called upon. But still Nauset only had nine men for the match. McCully ate the $250 fee for the refs and Nauset conceded the match. In hindsight, McCully said, he should’ve played two men down or rescheduled. It was something that had never happened in his 30 years with Nauset Storm.

The forfeit counted not only as a loss on Nauset’s record but docked them two points in the table. Without that penalty, Nauset — reigning three-time winners of the table and defending champs of the league playoffs — would be tied for top of the standings with Stable United, who have the same record (as of The Chronicle’s Tuesday deadline).

Slated next (on Wednesday) was a visit to AC Independence, which McCully said would be “big-time” for Nauset. AC Independence won the first meeting, the season opener in early June, 1-0, which was a rematch of last season’s championship. Holbert didn’t play that match.

“We're everyone's biggest game,” McCully said.