TAMPA- The University of South Florida men's soccer team came out tonight against in-state foe Florida Atlantic and got something that it had really been looking for all season long - much needed offense. USF stepped out of conference tonight and handed Florida Atlantic a 3-2 loss tonight at the USF Soccer Stadium. The Bulls' three goals is the highest goal total since defeating this same FAU team 3-0 last season, a stretch of 21 games. In addition, USF extended its home unbeaten streak to 25 games (21-0-4) dating back to a Sept. 23, 2007 win over Providence (3-1).

The Bulls started off quickly getting two of their three goals in the first 15 minutes of the contest. Hasani Sinclair started things off with a goal on a pass from Jorge Mora in the sixth minute of play. Bernardo Anor followed that up with a goal in the 15th minute off a pass from Fernando Gonzalez and Zak Boggs.

Although the shot differential was only slightly to USF's advantage in the first half, 9-6, the Bulls seemingly had control holding the Owls to no shots on goal out of their six in the first 45 minutes of action.

In the second half, Sinclair tried to spark the Bulls once again early in the stanza. The freshman played the ball down the left side of the 18-yard box and crossed it to a streaking Zak Boggs who was coming down the right side and looking for the header and attempting to give USF a three-goal lead. The pass, however, was just out of Boggs' reach.

FAU finally struck when Rocco Pecora scored in the 54th minute, off a pass from Darnell King, firing it past USF goalkeeper Jeff Attinella and into the top left corner.

The Bulls had another good opportunity to strike in the 68th minute of play when Felipe Libreros launched a corner kick into the goalie box to Javed Mohammed who sent the ball just high over the crossbar.

Sebastian Thuriere gave USF the insurance goal that it needed, on his first goal of the year, with eight minutes remaining in the game. It was a much needed score as the Owls came back just under four minutes later to cut the lead to one, 3-2, on a goal by King. Florida Atlantic, however, would not get any closer.

On the night, Attinella had just four saves on 10 shots while Florida Atlantic keeper Ciro Martinez made three stops in the loss.

The Bulls improve to 8-2-2 while FAU drops to 4-5-2.

The Bulls will get back into BIG EAST Conference play on Saturday, Oct. 17 when they travel to central New York to face Syracuse. Kick-off is slated for 7 p.m. at the SU Soccer Stadium.

USF will return home on Wednesday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. when it battles No. 20 Dartmouth in its final non-conference game of the year.

Season tickets for USF men's soccer games are $40 for adults and $20 for youths and senior citizens. Adult individual match tickets are $6, while youth and senior citizen admission is $3. All groups of 10 or more can purchase tickets for $2.50 per ticket. All USF students will be admitted at no cost when they display their student ID.