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Busters sign 16 for soccer
Published 4/18/2009 in Sports : GCCC
By MIKE KESSINGER
When he looked for an outline of how he wanted to go about recuiting for the 2009 fall season, Garden City Community College men's soccer coach Stephen Gorton approached it in two thoughts of mind: Would it be best to field a recuiting class of all freshmen and see how they blend into the college game? Or would it be better to add a few transfers into the mix and see if that could propel the Broncbusters into a second straight NJCAA national tournament?
Gorton went with the latter decision and by the time his recruiting was finished he had come up with a class of 16.
"We're extremely excited as far as the kids that we're losing we think that we filled the gaps really nicely with the class that we're bringing in," Gorton said of his recruited class of signees. "We're losing Mario (Ojeda) and Steve Shaw as forwards, but we're bringing in a lot of talent up top."
Much of what Gorton pin-pointed as talent brought in, starts with Jamie Villacis. A 5-foot-10 striker from Miami, Villacis sat out last season after an impressive freshman campaign at Mercer University, a NCAA Divsion I program in Atlanta. In his first season at the collegiate level, Villacis was named an all-conferencen first team selection.
The Busters also added some scoring punch from transfer strikers Frank Tayou from Tacoma (Wash.) Junior College and Raphael Serra, who is from Brazil and played at Tyler (Texas) Junior College last season. Tayou's brother Uzi Tayou, a defender, also transferred from Tacoma.
"When we set out we said 'Ok, do we bring in some freshmen and then see what they can do for us, or do we go after some transfer kids that we know can contribute right away and let's try to win it in '09?," Gorton said. "That's kind of what we did. We got a Division I transfer we got a couple of juco transfers, so we bring some experience and some college-level playing to a mix of 19 guys that we bring back that we already know can play."
With the good fortune Garden City had last season with a class heavy with players from the Miami area, Gorton didn't shy away from the sunshine state again. Along with Villacis, the Busters signed six freshmen from Miami. There were three Kansas pick ups, all from Liberal, in goalkeeper Sammy Duque, striker Cesar Jurado and midfielder Nestor Morales.
Much of the reason Gorton contributes to the program being able to bring in a group from Liberal is because of the former Redskin D.J. Zuniga, who started as a midfielder as a freshman last season during the Busters' run to the national tournament in Phoenix.
"Liberal's been, on the boys side of soccer, a power for a while," Gorton said. "The interest level from us has kind of gone up since D.J's kind of age has come through."
Garden City will have a little more of an international feel to it as Serra and midfielder signee Guilherme Silva are both from Brazil. Striker Jean Jaures and center back Andrew Sincock are both from England.
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