The Berkeley College men's soccer team played its home opener yesterday afternoon, earning a 2-2 tie against the Wolverines of Essex County College. The match took place at Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, NJ. With the result, the Knights moved to 3-1-1 on the 2024 campaign, while Essex now finds itself at 1-0-1.
The Knights scored the first goal of the afternoon in the eighth minute of play, when Joseph Buel fed a cutting Marco DaSilva, who would slip the ball past Wolverines netminder Ahmed Roudane to give the hosts a 1-0 edge. Noah Kaiser netted the equalizer in the 14th minute, capitalizing off of a beautiful pass from Milomic Cvoric and slashing the ball home to knot the match, 1-1. Those two aforementioned goals would be the only tallies of the opening 45 minutes, as the teams broke for halftime deadlocked at one apiece.
In the second half, at 67:51, Essex County College took a 2-1 lead when Miguel Solorzano scored (from Cvoric). A little over 10 minutes later, Knights veteran Suad Lukovic blasted home Ian Pallardel's feed to tie the match at two. That would be the final goal of the afternoon, as neither team was able to score the potential game-winner, and the Knights and Wolverines settled for a tie.
Berkeley held a 14-6 edge in shots, while also earning eight corner kick opportunities compared to two for the visitors.
Knights goalkeeper Victor Batista made two saves in addition to allowing the two goals. Wolverines netminder Ahmed Roudane yielded two goals while stopping six shots.
Berkeley College will return to action on Saturday, as the Knights will take to the road to battle Bryant & Stratton College (Albany). Start-time is scheduled for 5:00pm.
