Things were looking bleak for USF at home Wednesday night when Cincinnati, which is winless in the conference, team scored the opening goal 24 minutes in as the Bulls  looked for their first win in the American Athletic Conference.
That’s when the ball started rolling for the Bulls (4-2-4, 1-1-1), who scored four unanswered goals against the Bearcats in a 4-1 blowout.
“There were games before that could have went this way, but they didn’t for whatever reason,” USF coach George Kiefer said. “I think we can be a really good attacking team, but it starts with how relentless we are and how much pressure we put on the other team.”
Cincinnati’s junior midfielder Ashani Walker tallied his fifth goal of the season to give the visiting Bearcats a 1-0 edge, but less than 10 minutes later, the crowd became jubilant when senior forward Stiven Salinas tied the game at 1-1 for USF on a cross-in from eight yards out.
Before the end of the first period, junior forward Edwin Moalosi broke away with a pass and scored with 2:40 left in the half.
Moalosi scored his second goal of the night on a penalty kick, his third goal of the season.
“When Eddie came off the field, I said to him ‘He was possessed to win the game, and I like people who have passion for what they do,'” Kiefer said.
Just two minutes later, junior midfielder Gerardo Hernandez scored his first goal of the season off of a cross kick.
Cincinnati (3-8-1, 0-4-0) had four yellow cards and twelve fouls in the second half alone.
Kiefer said that they started out the game very strong even though Cincinnati scored an excellent goal, but then they came back to score two goals in the half.
“It was nice to come back out after halftime for another 45 minutes with the right mentality,” Kiefer said. “The team looked possessed to keep the ball on the attacking half of the field.”
USF travels to Temple on Saturday for a 3 p.m. game.