The Berkeley College New Jersey men's soccer team dropped a game on Wednesday afternoon, falling to the Cyclones of Centenary College by a score of 5-0 in a game played at J.E. Reeves Field in Hackettstown, N.J. With the defeat, the Knights dropped to a mark of 2-8 on the 2015 campaign, while Centenary improved its record to 5-4.
The Cyclones took the lead for good in the early stages of the match, as Justin White took advantage of a penalty kick opportunity in the eighth minute, burying the ball past Berkeley College netminder Arturo Botero (at 7:51) to give his team a 1-0 lead. Just under 12 minutes later, White received a beautiful cross pass from Daniel Lamanna before tapping the ball into the net (at 19:33) to increase his team's lead to 2-0. White returned the favor to Lamanna at the 23:14 mark, slicing a ball over to Lamanna who banged a ball home to give the Cyclones a commanding 3-0 advantage. The score would stay 3-0 in favor of Centenary as time expired on the first half.
In the second session – the Knights relieved Botero with netminder Nick Araujo – but Centenary College did not slow up. Just 4:56 into the second half, Makenson Joseph scored a goal off of a nifty pass from Matthew Anderson (at 49:56) to push the Cyclones' lead to 4-0. Centenary's Chris Flores capped the scoring in the 90th minute, knocking home a ball off a Bryan Mason helper (at 89:28). That made the score 5-0 in favor of the Cyclones who hadn't missed a beat the entire contest. Following the game, Berkeley College Head Coach Bruno Ferreira spoke.
"We understood coming in that Centenary College would pose a challenge for us, and they did a good job of setting the tone of the match early, and unfortunately we couldn't generate offense," Ferreira said. "We'll try to shake this one off and regroup, as we have Valley Forge University on Saturday."
Centenary out-shot the Knights by a margin of 27-15 on the day. Cyclones goalkeeper Jesse Goleman recorded his third shutout of the season, and lowered his G.A.A. to 1.49 in the process. Centenary had seven corner kick opportunities compared to three for Berkeley.
The Knights will look to bounce back on Saturday afternoon, as Berkeley College will take to the road to battle Valley Forge University in Phoenixville, PA. Start-time for that contest is scheduled for 3:00pm.
