Men's soccer beats San Francisco

[PonyPride]

Freshman forward Paulo da Silva scored a pair of goals to lead the SMU men's soccer team to a 2-1 win over San Francisco Friday night at Westcott Field in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Ponies advance to a second-round match at UCLA, which had a bye in the opening round.

Observations:

• da Silva was terrific, and benefitted significantly from the attention USF paid to fellow forward Duke Hashimoto (the USF coach said after the game that Hashimoto was the focus of his defensive gameplan). He wasn't perfect, firing what should have been his third first-half goal over the crossbar from 10 yards out.

• Junior defender Jay Needham was brilliant. He's not an overly flashy player, but he's extremely smart and consistent, and he helped the Ponies survive a furious attack at the beginning of the game. The Dons have a lot of size up front, and Needham was the anchor for the SMU defense, more than holding his own in the air.

• Goalkeeper Matt Wideman basically was untested all night. He faced one shot on goal all night, with three seconds left in the game (which produced USF's goal).

• SMU dominated the midfield all night. Bruno Guarda was sensational (SMU head coach said after the game that if he keeps progressing, Guarda will be an All-America honoree before his SMU career is over). David Chun and Kellan Zindel simply dominated the possession in the middle of the field.