The Berkeley College New York men's soccer team (1-1 Overall, 1-0 HVIAC) rebounded from a tough double overtime defeat to FDU-Florham this past Tuesday by defeating the Lions of King's College (0-2, 0-2 HVIAC) in a Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference contest by a score of 7-0 in a game that took place at Aviator Field in Brooklyn, NY. Berkeley's victory over King's College came exactly one year to the day that the Knights defeated the Lions by an identical 7-0 output at the same venue.
Berkeley wasted no time setting the tone for the contest early, as standout Harold Akawor collected a cross pass from Sebastian Rousseau and buried the ball into the net 54 seconds in to give the Knights a 1-0. Berkeley increased its lead to a pair of goals at the 17:40 mark of the opening session when Rousseau notched a goal of his own. Yannick Mabuye picked up an assist on the tally, as the Knights took a 2-0 lead. First year Knights Aboubacar Sogoba and Victor Marotta scored at the 27:33 and 38:26 marks, respectively, as Berkeley pushed ahead by a score of 4-0. The Knights took that four goal edge into the locker room as time expired on the opening stanza.
In the second half, Berkeley College continued to pad its lead, as the Knights capitalized on a corner kick opportunity at the 60:03 mark when Mathias Valle lofted a ball towards the box that was re-directed into the net on a header by Kengo Sato. That put Berkeley up 5-0. Later – Sogoba would score an unassisted goal – his second tally of the evening – at 68:37 - to put the Knights up 6-0. Akawor capped the scoring with a goal at 87:54, putting an exclamation point on a nice victory for Berkeley. Following the win, Head Coach Stavros Zomopoulos gave his thoughts.
"It's definitely good for the team's morale and confidence to come out here and pick up a victory, especially considering how tough the loss was on Tuesday at FDU," Zomopoulous said. "We always want to get off to a fast start in conference competition, and I believe tonight we did that. We'll try to take the momentum of this game into our contest against SUNY Delhi on Monday afternoon."
Berkeley's Mathias Valle and Gustavo Moreno combined for a shutout, as they were untested in net for the most part. Valle logged 27:47 of game action, making one save, while Moreno played the final 62:13 and made one stop. King's College netminder Sadiq Keshwani stopped 11 shots in a losing effort.
The Knights dominated the game in all facets, out-shooting King's College by a count of 37-3 and getting 11 corner kick opportunities on the evening to the Lions' 1.
Berkeley will return to action on Monday afternoon, as the Knights will take to the road to battle SUNY Delhi in a non-conference match on Labor Day. Start-time for that contest is scheduled for 4:00pm.
