SARASOTA, Fla. – The Banyans won their season opener against the Florida College Falcons in a 4-0 shutout, backing up claims that this was a team that would be ready to compete immediately.
The game plan for this team, according to head coach Glodi Konga, was to be comprehensive on both sides of the ball. The team put their coach's words into action with a hot start to put the team up 3-0 at halftime. They added one more goal to that total in the second half while keeping the Falcons off the board to end the game at 4-0. The defensive effort was led by midfielder
Randy Otoo, who was all smiles after his team's performance on defense.
"We put in work day in, day out trying to fix all the pieces, put the pieces together on the back, make sure that we have a solid defense. Coach has been working with us on how to keep our shape, maintain the back line, and, yeah, it paid off."
Otoo has been one of the team leaders for the past two seasons and was seemingly all over the field during the team's shutout victory. On the other side of the field, four different Banyan players found the net with goals scored by
Joel Fluvia, Fabian Donal, Sebastian Pedraza, and
Kais Sabic. Also finding his way on the stat sheet was
Jose Gutierrez, the freshman midfielder credited for two assists off corner kicks.
"We've been working again offensively trying to get all the strikers to shoot and, yeah, you see them putting goals in the back of the net and we are happy," said Otoo. "We could have gotten more, but yeah, four is still a good number and we look forward to scoring more goals."
From the very beginning, Coach Konga made it clear he wanted his team focused on one step at a time. After the team's victory, Otoo emulates this mentality.
"The season is long. It's been a long journey, and it feels good to win, but now it's time to look forward to the next game, Saturday. It's a tough game, but we are home. We don't lose at home, so we are going to keep that same spirit."
The Banyans will face Florida National University at home on Saturday, August 24th.
