The Berkeley College New Jersey men’s soccer team picked up a victory on Senior Day, defeating the Cardinals of York College by a score of 4-1 in a game played at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, NJ. With the win, the Knights upped their record to 3-10 on the 2015 campaign, while the Cardinals are still searching for their first win this season, as they fell to 0-12-1.
Prior to the contest, the Berkeley College Department of Athletics took a few moments to honor two seniors – Jacob Tafur and Juan Faciolince – in a special pregame ceremony. After some heartfelt words were said about Tafur, he was presented with a commemorative plaque by Director of Athletics Andy DeStephano, Athletic Coordinator Stephen Spagnoli, and Head Coach Bruno Ferreira. Faciolince was not in attendance at Senior Day, but will be presented with his plaque prior to the Knights’ game Friday against UMFK.
The Knights did all of their damage in the opening session, as Berkeley raced out to a commanding 4-0 lead by the 26th minute of action. Ali Yildirim got the scoring started for the Knights in the fifth minute (at 4:56) when he received a beautiful cross pass from Alejandro Huerta before burying the ball into the net to give Berkeley a 1-0 advantage. Just 37 seconds later (at 5:33) – the Knights made it 2-0 when Huerta scored from 18 yards away off of a pass from Mario Hernandez.
Yildirim scored again in the 18th minute (at 17:41) as she rocketed home a pass from Patryk Praszek into the net to increase the Knights’ lead to 3-0. Brandon Bannout made it 4-0 when he received a cross pass from Ioan Espinosa and put the ball home (at 25:52). York College was able to finally get on the board at 28:42 when Luis Cordero blasted a ball into the net from 20 yards out.
In the second half, Berkeley College played smothering defense, allowing just four York College shots, and only one on goal. The Knights’ stellar defensive effort in the second half was a nice compliment to the team’s offensive outburst in the opening session. The Knights went on to win the game by three goals. Head Coach Bruno Ferreira gave his thoughts following the victory.
“As a team, it was good for us to get a victory today,” Ferreira said. “It certainly has been a challenging season, but to see us play so well on a day when we honored our seniors was definitely special. We’ll look to make it two consecutive victories tomorrow at Staten Island.”
The Knights out-shot the Cardinals 14-10, and Berkeley had seven corner kick opportunities compared to four for York. Knights netminder Elvis Carino made two saves while allowing just the one goal. York College goalkeeper Oluwapelumi Akinde allowed four goals while stopping seven shots.
Berkeley College will return to action tomorrow evening when the Knights will battle the Dolphins of the College of Staten Island at the CSI Soccer Complex. Start-time for that contest is scheduled for 4:00pm.
