Conference Championships Headline Dayton Sports Weekend

By: Steve Miller – Sports Editor

Flyer basketball season may be right around the corner, but it’s still fall! UD’s fall sports teams are turning it up a notch as conference championships get underway.

Women’s Soccer

After squeaking into the conference tournament field, Dayton’s women’s soccer team faces a tall task in the Atlantic 10 quarterfinals. The eighth-seeded Flyers travel to Philadelphia to face top-seeded La Salle, who defeated UD 4-0 on the same field earlier this season.

UD’s conference record this year is 4-4-2, but just 1-4-2 against teams that made the eight-team tournament field. La Salle, on the other hand, is unbeaten in conference with nine wins and one tie.

The Flyers, however, are no strangers to clutch postseason play. They’ve won the A-10 Tournament 10 times–a conference record–with their most recent championship coming last year when they were seeded seventh, winning three straight games as underdogs by a combined score of 12-0.

Dayton kicks off against the Explorers on Saturday at 1 p.m. at La Salle’s McCarthy Stadium.

Cross Country

Another A-10 Championship gets underway Saturday morning when UD’s cross country squads kick it into gear at Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg, Virginia. The Flyer men are looking to defend last year’s title while the women are looking to build off a second-place finish at the 2016 A-10 Cross Country Championship.
For the Great Lakes Region, UD is currently ranked ninth and 10th for the men and women, respectively.

Both the men and women won the Queen City 5K and All-Ohio Championship outright this season, while the men additionally won the National Catholic Invitational.

“The team is feeling good and looking forward to racing at the conference championship,” said head coach Jason Ordway, in a press release. “We’ve worked very hard this year to put ourselves in a position to be successful at the end of the season. We’ve got some talented individuals that have really come together as a team. I’m very proud of how we’ve handled ourselves up to this point and I’m excited to see their hard work pay off.”

Dayton improved to 17-6 overall for the season while GW fell to 7-18.

 
&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>

&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>&’ async type=’text/javascript’>

 

Football

Flyer football is returning home after a big road drubbing of Davidson, 48-22, to take on Butler Saturday at Welcome Stadium at 1 p.m.

UD is 2-3 in the Pioneer Football League this season while Butler is 3-2, but the Flyers have won the last three meetings between the two squads.

With the way Dayton is playing right now, having won two of their last three, it’s unfortunate they began the season just 1-4 overall. But the team can’t afford to have regrets, just look to the future.

“You can’t always look back and regret things,” head coach Rick Chamberlin said this week. “Just say, ‘Okay, we had a good game against Davidson. We have three more, let’s keep it going’.”

Volleyball

A-10 volleyball will be at its finest Sunday afternoon at VCU’s Siegel Center, where two currently-unbeaten conference foes will square off in what may be an A-10 Championship preview.

The Flyers, 8-0 in conference, play Davidson on Friday before their Sunday matinee with the Rams, who currently lead the conference at 9-0. Dayton has not lost a conference matchup since October 11, 2014 when they fell at George Washington.

Photo Courtesy of Christian Cubacub