It looks like the New England Revolution’s love for the north Texas area will keep on growing as they handed FC Dallas their first loss of the season, 1-0. Tonight also marked the first time the Hoops have been shut out this year. All-time, including last year’s US Open Cup final that the Revs won 3-2, New England is now 12-4-1 @ FC Dallas.

The 10,453 in attendance saw Revs Khano Smith score the lone goal in the 72nd minute, which ended Dallas’ streak of consecutive minutes without surrendering a goal at 252, the longest in the league this year. FC Dallas had come into Thursday night’s nationally televised match with New England as the lone unbeaten team still left in MLS. Smith’s goal came after he chased down a ball along the left touchline, winning a battle with FCD midfielder Dax McCarty. He then cut across the top of the area and hit a low shot with his weaker right foot from about 20 yards that went into the far side of the net past FCD keeper Dario Sala.

FCD’s best chance of the night was probably the 24th minute shot by returning starter Juan Toja who nailed a side-volley scissor kick toward the far side of the net, but New England ‘keeper Matt Reis reacted perfectly, making a diving save to keep the match scoreless.

New England had five shots on goal while Dallas had four. With a depleted team due to injuries, New England head coach Steve Nicol went with a 4-4-2 formation and played many youngsters. Injured players Taylor Twellman, Steve Ralston, Matt Britner, Chris Albright, Jeff Larentowicz, Sainey Nyassi and Mauricio Castro (red card suspesion) missed the trip for the Revs, so Chase Hilgenbrinck made his first career MLS start.

With Juan Toja back ready to start and Pablo Richetti available, Coach Morrow went back to his favored 3-5-2 formation. When asked if this was a fair result for FCD, Morrow said, “No, I don’t think it was. We deserved to get something out of the game” and that “they stole the game from us” as “we completely dominated the game from start to finish”.

After the game, Dax McCarty said, “There is no excuse, I probably need to be a little stronger there (on Smith’s shot). I lost my balance a little bit and he got by me” and “it was a pretty harsh result for us”. When asked about New England’s defense, he commented that “they just stayed very organized and they stayed very disciplined” and he praised the play of Revolution defenders Michael Parkhurst and Jay Heaps and said Matt Reis “came up big when he had too”.

New England is off until next Saturday, when they will play host to Chicago at Gillette Stadium while FC Dallas will also have some time to recuperate as they won’t take the field again until May 3 when they travel to San Jose.