Box Score LAKELAND, Fla.—The Fire men's soccer team needed a win and some help to claim its first conference title in program history.
And when the night was over, the stars aligned, and the Fire celebrated a 4-0 win over Ave Maria as The Sun Conference champions with an 8-1 league record.
"To win the championship is a testament to the growth of the program, to the players for stepping up and doing what we've asked of them," said coach
Clay Roberts.
Within 40 seconds of entering the game, freshman
Jake Van Der Luit dialed in his fourth goal of the season on a run through the midfield on a feed from
Corey Mills for the game's first score.
Junior captain
Pedro Ivo Dias found the back of the net with four seconds left in the first half off of a free kick from 30 yards out to give the Fire a two goal cushion at the intermission. Ivo Dias also scored in the second half on a penalty kick with 15:27 remaining, beating the keeper to his left to make it 3-0.
"In the big moments, you rely on your captain, and we rode him tonight," said Roberts of Ivo Dias. "He set the tone for us, we played through him a majority of the time."
The Fire added an exclamation mark with 24 seconds left when
Ashton Hicks raced after a loose ball near the top of the box, and buried it from five yards out.
With the shutout, the Fire have not allowed a goal in their last 405 minutes of play.
"Our leadership has stepped up for us on defense," said Roberts. "We talked about not giving up some of the silly goals we had early on in non-conference play. When leadership steps up, it sets the tone for the whole team, and lets us get going offensively when we know we're solid back there."
Three of the four goals scored were by underclassmen.
"At the beginning of the season, we expected to be a good team, and I think early on it showed that we were young and made some mistakes," said Roberts. "Give credit to our players for getting better and learning as the season went on."
The Fire will wrap up the regular season with Senior Night on Friday against Florida College, before opening up Sun Conference Tournament play on November 7
th in the semifinal.
