Saturday, October 30, 2010

FORT MYERS, Fla. – The No. 23 FGCU men’s soccer team tallied a goal just 14 minutes into its Friday night contest against Jacksonville and never looked back en route to a convincing 4-0 shutout to clinch the outright Atlantic Sun regular season title.

The Eagles entered the night in need of just one point in order to capture the outright title after clinching a share of the crown with last Friday’s 1-0 double-overtime win over Stetson. ETSU’s (7-2) 21 points were tied with FGCU at the beginning of the night, but the Buccaneers have no A-Sun games remaining.

FGCU now stands at 12-3-2 overall and 8-0 in the A-Sun as it will attempt to become just the ninth team in conference history to finish the regular season unbeaten when it hosts UNF on Sunday for Senior Day. Just two teams have gone unbeaten since the A-Sun moved out of divisions following the 1998 season.

“I’m proud of the way we responded after earning at least a share of the A-Sun title last Friday. To come back and defeat a team which we have never been able beat shows a lot about our character,” said reigning A-Sun Coach of the Year Bob Butehorn. “The team really showed their maturity tonight and it was exciting to see them control the pace of the game to come away with the four-goal win. I’m looking forward to Sunday, but it will be a very emotional day as I watch a few of the guys who got us to where the program is today, play their final game.”

The win is also the first for FGCU over Jacksonville, who drops to 8-8-1 on the season and 3-5 in the conference.