The Berkeley College New Jersey men's soccer team split a pair of games this past weekend, falling to Crusaders of Christendom by a score of 2-0 Friday evening in Royal Virginia before turning back the Penn State Mont Alto Nittany Lions by a final of 10-3 on Saturday evening in Mont Alto, PA. With the split, the Knights are now 1-2 on the 2015 campaign.
After being edged on Friday night by Christendom, Berkeley bounced back in a huge way on Saturday, breaking out for 10 goals en route to a seven-goal victory over the Nittany Lions. In the opening session against Penn State Mont Alto, five different players contributed goals for Berkeley, including Pedro Dos Santos, Juan Faciolince, Julian Caprio, Wender Lima, and Ali Yildirim. Bryan Costa also contributed with two assists in that first half, while Faciolince picked up a helper on Dos Santos' goal.
The opening eight minutes of the second half featured a flurry of goals, as Berkeley's John Grant scored at 45:08 to push the Knights' lead to 6-0. Penn State Mont Alto – despite facing a six-goal deficit – refused to quite. The Nittany Lions would score consecutive goals – the first by Daulton Hershey on a penalty kick at 49:45 – and the second by Corey Meyers (assisted by Mateo Granados) at 52:58 – to pull to within four at 6-2. A little over seven minutes later, Faciolince notched his second goal of the game (at 60:03) off a pass from Grant to extend Berkeley's advantage to 7-2.
Penn State Mont Alto would respond 3:07 after Faciolince's tally, as the Nittany Lions' Meyers would net his second goal of the contest to once again bring his team to within four goals at 7-3. The Knights would pull away from there, though, scoring three unanswered goals to put the game away (one by Grant at 65:18, and two by Dos Santos at 87:31 and 89:05). Following the weekend, Head Coach Bruno Ferreira gave his thoughts on the teams' performances against Christendom and Penn State Mont Alto.
"We couldn't have played two more different games this past weekend," Ferreira said. "On Friday evening, we pretty much failed to produce any offense, and that ultimately cost us because our effort defensively really kept us within striking distance. On Saturday, not only did we score goals, but many different players contributed, and that is encouraging to see. Now we'll have six days before getting ready to give it our all in the Rowan Tournament."
The Knights will look to build off their victory against the Nittany Lions this coming weekend, as Berkeley will travel to Glassboro, New Jersey to participate in the Rowan University Tournament. On Saturday, September 12, the Knights will take on Wesley at 7:00pm. The following day – on September 13 at 5:00pm – Berkeley will face off against Moravian at 5:00pm.
