NORTHFIELD, Vt.— The Norwich University men's soccer team couldn't have had a much better debut in its 2013 season opener on Friday afternoon against Green Mountain College.

The Cadets featured relentless offensive pressure and dominated the possession in the first 45 minutes, scoring six goals to pull away from the Eagles en route to the victory in the inaugural intercollegiate sporting event on the brand-new Sabine Field.

Norwich (1-0) got goals from an array of faces, including two tallies from freshmen forwards Alec Brigante (Colchester, Vt.) and Jacob Zimmerman (Litchfield, N.H.)  playing in their first collegiate games.

A trio of seniors in Wesley Keslin (Brossard, Quebec), Joe Young (Mclean, Va.) and Nathan Bacon (Randolph, Vt.) tallied goals as well for the Cadets as they topped Green Mountain for the second straight year in their season opener.  Sophomore Brian Baker (Keene, N.H.) also tallied his first collegiate goal to round out the Norwich goal scorers. Freshman Kyle Spillane (Colorado Springs, Colo.) also notched two assists in his collegiate debut.

Young opened the scoring just 5:04 into the contest to give the Cadets the lead that they would never look back from again. He worked a give-and-go with fellow senior Eric Weir (Ipswich, Mass.) to create space and then buried a shot past a diving Kevin Purdy into the left corner of the net.

Zimmerman pushed the lead to 2-0 just over six minutes later when he tapped home a crossing pass from junior Derek Morin (South Paris, Maine) from inside the six-yard box.

Just 2:02 later Keslin headed home a perfect volley pass off the foot of senior captain Ryan Campbell (Damascus, Md.) to stretch the lead to 3-0.

Baker made it 4-0 at the 34:58 mark of the first by roofing a shot just under the cross bar off a pass from Spillane. Bacon made it 5-0 a little less than 2:30 later when he headed home a crossing pass also from Spillane. Brigante closed out the scoring at the 39:00 mark when he tapped home a pass from Anthony Amell (Northfield, Vt.) after Amell faked out the goalie to leave a two on zero in front of the net.

Junior goalkeeper Greg Payne (State College, Pa.) picked up the victory for the Cadets making one save in 30:52. Fellow junior Christian Hallstrom (Las Vegas, Nev.) relieved Payne and made one save as well in 44:33 of action. Freshman Kevin Taylor (Natick, Mass.) completed the team shutout for Norwich by recording his first minutes of college action in the final 15 minutes of the match.

Norwich outshot Green Mountain College 37-4 and had 16 corner kicks to the Eagles' two.

Norwich will look to clinch its second straight Cadet Kickoff Classic title on Saturday afternoon when it takes on Johnson State at 1 p.m. Mass. College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) will face Green Mountain College at 11 a.m. in the other matchup.

(Highlights by Tanner Acebo, Norwich Sports Information