Vitor Gomes Earns East Coast Conference Offensive Player of the Year; Host of Firebirds Earn All-Conference Honors
WEST BABYLON, N.Y.- The East Conference announced its Men's Soccer All-Conference selections on Friday afternoon. Senior Forward/Midfielder Vitor Gomes became the second player in program history to be named Offensive Player of the Year and Javier Abadia Torres, Samuel Nicolodi, Michel Egbame, and Ignacio Pericet made Second-Team All-Conference.
Gomes, also a First-Team selection, played and started in all 16 games of the regular season. He registered 27 points on 12 goals and three assists. He also led the league with five game-winning goals, four of which were in conference play, and was ranked sixth in all of Division II.
Gomes was named Offensive Player of the week for the week of September 20th and went on to make multiple weekly honor rolls. Gomes became the first player since All-American Gabriel Torres, to earn a post-season award for the Firebirds.
Torres and Nicolodi made Second Team for anchoring the UDC defense. Torres had a total of 55 saves on the season and started in 14 of 16 games during the regular season. Nicolodi also started in 14 of the 16 games played and along with Torres help force six shutouts on the season.
Pericet and Egbame also made it to the Second-Team All-Conference list. Despite being out on injury freshman forward Pericet finished the season tied for the 13th in the conference and second on the team with five goals. He was named Rookie of the week for the week of Sept 20th and registered a game-high two goals in the Firebirds non-conference victory over Bloomsburg.
Egbame posted a total of nine points on three goals and three assists and started in 14 of the 16 games played during the regular season playing a pivotal role in the UDC offense.
UDC went 8-5-4 on the season with a historic 11 game unbeaten record. This also marked the second time since joining the conference back in 2012, that the program has made it into the postseason.