(RV) FIU Men’s Soccer Earns Much Needed Win over Temple

MIAMI, FL – It’s been a while since FIU Men’s Soccer has had a win, following a series of draws to Central Arkansas and UCF, along with a 2-1 loss to New Hampshire.

Out of the Top 25, the Panthers needed to turn around their recent woes and did just that (in dominating fashion) over their first opponent of the AAC – the Temple Owls by a score of 5-1.

An Offensive Party for the Panthers

Both teams did have to wait a bit for the action to start thanks in part to the weather, which pushed the game back by 30 minutes.

However, FIU still came out of the gates swinging, finding their first goal of the match in the 18th-minute courtesy of forward Eduardo Mustre, who capitalized off a pass from midfielder Matthias Lavenant for his fourth goal of the year.

Lavenant himself found the back of the net 20 minutes later for his first goal of the season, and his first since 2021. That extended FIU’s lead to 2-0, and the Panthers’ defense did the rest by shutting out the Owls up until halftime.

Into the 60th minute, forward Bernardo Dos Santos Monteiro got involved with the offense and sank a shot into the top-right corner of the net with 30 minutes left to go.

The second-to-last goal of the night came from a Temple foul, their first of the entire match. It set up forward Fumiya Shiraishi for an easy chip-in, resulting in a 4-0 lead with minutes to go.

FIU didn’t call off the dogs and instead got their final goal of the game a minute later off a low shot by forward Simon Afrifa to wrap things up for the offense.

Temple would not be shut out, however, and sank the final shot of the night a minute after the Panthers scored. Regardless, the match finally ended in favor of FIU by a score of 5-1.

A Look at the Stats on Alumni Night

It was all FIU, no other way to put it. They dominated the shots (18 to 4) and corner kicks, (6 to 2) and Tyler Hogan only recorded a single single save because it was quiet for most of the night on the Panthers side of the field.

The win puts FIU back up .500 with a record of 3-2-2 and should be good preparation for the Panthers as they get ready for a slate of conference opponents. They’ll head to Tennessee to face the Memphis Tigers on Saturday, September 23rd at 8pm.