Men's Soccer Championship Game One: SMU 6, Florida International 0
Box Score
Nov. 1, 2006 TULSA, Okla. - The No. 1 seed SMU Mustangs began the 2006 Conference USA men's soccer championship with a convincing 6-0 win over Florida International on Wednesday afternoon at the Hurricane Soccer and Track Stadium on the campus of the University of Tulsa. C-USA men's soccer Player of the Year Bruno Guarda began the scoring for SMU with an unassisted goal in the 21st minute of the first half and the Mustangs remained in control for the rest of the contest. SMU improved to 16-1-3 (5-1-2 C-USA) with the win, while FIU ends its regular season at 6-10-2 (2-6-0). SMU's Paulo DaSilva scored another unassisted goal (29:38) of a rebound in front of the net to push the lead to 2-0 and Jay Needham extended the lead to 3-0 with his third goal of the season off an SMU corner kick. The Mustangs led at the half 3-0. The Golden Panthers kept it a three-goal game for most of the second half until SMU added three more goals, all coming after the 75th minute. Manual Mariel scored two and Jordan Mann added the third for the Ponies. Head coach Schellas Hyndman thought his team was ready to make a statement today after needing overtime to defeat the Golden Panthers earlier in the season.
"We were a better team today," Hyndman said. "They had a great advantage playing at home in the previous game and were really motivated. Today we just played really well and moved the ball well from the backfield. We are happy with the result and the fact we came out and played a great game."
The six goals scored by SMU is a new Conference USA Championship record. The previous record was five by SMU advances to play in the Friday's semifinals against the winner of South Carolina and UAB. The match will begin at 5:00 p.m.
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