Melbourne, Fla. (Men's Soccer) – Several lightning delays could not slow down the Florida Tech (2-0) offense in their regional bout with Shorter (0-3) on Monday, as the Panthers throttled the visiting Hawks in the second half on the way to a 5-1 victory at Rick Stottler Field.

FIT has now had to brush off poor weather and extensive delays in each of its first two games this season. Nevertheless, the Crimson and Gray offense has seemed unfazed as they have scored a total of nine goals in their two wins.

Five different Panthers found the back of the net in the victory. Notching goals for FIT were Luca Campanini, Jan Hlavica, Italo Ramos, Brandon Smalley and Solomon Wheatley. Five players accounted for seven assists in the contest with Fabian Egbele and Josh Thomas distributing two apiece and Hugo Lopez, Per Henrik Nag and Mikkel Roeisland dishing out one assist each.

Luuk Teurlinx earned his first career win in his first start, while making three saves.

Florida Tech finished with more shots (19-9), shots on goal (11-4) and corner kicks (9-3) in the match.

The first lightning strike came just seven minutes into the contest. After a hour and a half delay, the sky opened up and the teams were able to retake the field and resume the game.

It didn't take long for FIT to get onto the scoreboard as Campanini knocked a cross past Shorter's Sean Carpenter to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead at the 10:53 mark of the opening half. Nag and Thomas earned assists on the play. 

The score would remain the same at the halftime break. Neither team produced much offense in the initial 45 minutes of action. SU led in shots (4-3), while FIT controlled the corner kicks (5-1).

Hassane Traore knotted the game up at 1-1 early into the second half, heading a Felix Guijosa cross past Teurlinx at 47:26.

The Panthers' regained the lead when Smalley headed in an Egbele pass, from 25 yards out, over the outstretched arms of Carpenter, who was at the top of the box.

Hlavica increased FIT's lead to 3-1 with a blast from 15 yards out that blew past Carpenter at the 69:42 mark. Roeisland and Egbele were credited with assists on the goal.

Wheatley, who showed impressive effort off the bench, pushed the Panthers' lead to 4-1 when he beat his defender on the right side of the box and crushed the ball just under the crossbar at 73:09.

Ramos tallied the team's final goal in the 90th minute after receiving a great feed from Lopez in the Hawk's box and sliding the ball into the back of the net, past substitute goalkeeper Luis Vazquez.

"We are very pleased with the focus the boys showed in dealing with the weather challenges," said head coach Robin Chan. "We carved out a number of good chances today against  a resilient Shorter side and had a lot of guys contributing on the attacking end, which bodes well for us at this stage.

"We rotated some players in given the quick turnaround from Saturday night and were happy to continue to see some good depth and competition within the squad.  The boys have a good collective energy about them right now and we're all excited for the next opportunity we have to step on the field together."

Florida Tech returns to action on Friday, Sept. 8, when they take on another regional opponent in Alabama-Huntsville at 5 p.m. ET in Montgomery, Alabama.