Men's soccer team hits road for big weekend of soccer

After a strong preseason, the Eastern Florida State College men's soccer team turns its attention to the regular season.

The No. 11 Titans will open the regular season this weekend in Kansas facing two top 20 teams as they play No. 6 Trinidad State Junior College, then play No. 19 Laramie County Community College Saturday and head coach Oliver Twelvetrees thinks this team could be special.

"We are excited about this group of players, they have come in and worked really hard. We have talent across the board, we are deeper, we are stronger, we are faster than previous years and we have an opportunity to achieve our goals this season," Twelvetrees said. "The technical level of this group is an improvement from last year, a lot of these guys have played at very high levels and that helps them step into the college game and be able to make an impact as freshmen. We have some players that can run and move and are going to be able to stretch the opponents defensive line. We have a lot of weapons for a defense to cope with."

Danilo Orsi-Dadomo returns after a freshman season in which he set the all-time single season scoring record with 14 goals last season. Alex Alexis is also back after scoring five goals and assisting on five other goals last season. Freshmen Chaim Roserie and Jimmy Mwanga have come in and played well this preseason, giving the Titans a well-balanced offense.

"We have the capability to play in many different ways, we can hurt you with our speed and pace out wide, but then we can also keep the ball and possess the ball and be a possession based team," Twelvetrees said. "One day we may be a technical team, try to keep the ball. Another day you may see us playing deep and running a counter attack, transitioning very quickly. We can hurt you in many ways, we have weapons all over the pitch."

Defensively goalkeeper Bryce Notardonato and defender Owen Tworkowski are also back from last year's team that finished 12-4-1.

"Hopefully we can win every game this year but we have to play as hard as we can in every game to achieve that," Tworkowski said. "We have great players at every position, we have a lot more depth on the backline that just leads to more competition and we will all get better because of that."

With Notardonato and Tworkowski returning and the addition of Rhys Myers, Hakeem Reid, Max Sherer, Leonardo Berry and Vashiko Dixon, the defense could be one of the team's strengths this season.

"We had the opportunity to bring in some guys in January and have had that spring season to get acclimated and have a lot of experience, talent, size and strength in that back line," Twelvetrees said.

The Titans will open the home portion of their schedule on Sept. 1 when they host Jefferson College at 8 p.m. Admission to soccer games at Titan Soccer Complex are free of charge.