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Cunningham scores 4 in FC Dallas' 6-0 win

Aug 2, 2009 - 4:27 AM FRISCO, Texas (STATS) - Jeff Cunningham knows he won't replace Kenny Cooper, but he sure made Dallas fans forget about him for one night.

With their leading scorer being transferred on Friday to 1860 Munich in Germany, Cunningham stepped up for FC Dallas and scored a career-high four goals - doubling his season output - as Dallas routed the Kansas City Wizards 6-0 Saturday night.

David Ferreira scored twice for Dallas, which matched a franchise record for goals in a game and set a new mark for margin of victory. Dallas snapped a two-game losing streak and won its third straight at home.

Cunningham, who had his second MLS hat trick, increased his career goal total to 112, surpassing former Dallas legend Jason Kreis for third on the league's all-time list and edging to within two of Chivas USA's Ante Razov for second.

"This is one of those games that every striker dreams of," said Cunningham, who has seven goals in his last four games. "It seems as if everything you do went well for me tonight, so it's just one of those performances you're grateful of. I'm happy that I was able to score four goals tonight."

Kansas City (5-7-7) dropped to 0-2-2 in its last four matches, scoring one goal in that span.

"I'm not going to give you my general thoughts because there would be so many profanities in there, you're not going to be able to publish it," Wizards coach Curt Onalfo said.

Cooper was in the building and was very happy to see his former teammate break through with a virtuoso performance.

"This was a nice little send-off for me," said Cooper, who leaves for Germany Sunday. "It was just an amazing performance and I'm really happy to see them play so well. I'm extremely excited to see Jeff score all those goals, the last couple of games, he's been on fire."

Entering halftime with a 2-0 lead for the second consecutive match, FC Dallas was determined to avoid the collapse that led to a crushing 4-2 loss in Salt Lake last weekend and did so in spectacular fashion.

"We talked about it at halftime," FC Dallas coach Schellas Hyndman said. "Just a week ago, we were in the same position and sometimes you have to burn your hand to know the stove is hot and you have to learn from experience. And I think that was an opportunity for us to learn. The thing we set on, was the first 15 minutes, not to give them any scoring chances and I think we did a good job of that."

The Wizards had their best scoring opportunity in the 48th minute, but goalkeeper Dario Sala, returning to the lineup after missing 12 games with a knee injury, made an acrobatic diving stop on Davy Arnaud for his only save of the night.

"I just wanted to get it somewhere on target and he made a pretty good save," said Arnaud, who has five goals this year. "Take your hat off to him. It was disappointing. It would have been nice to get to 2-1 at that point."

Sala recorded his first shutout of the season.

Kansas City played the final 22 minutes of the match with 10 men after Claudio Lopez was ejected with a red card for a retaliatory hit to the face of Dallas' Dax McCarty just two minutes after Cunningham's second goal made it 3-0 off a penalty kick.