Flyers Stun No. 1 West Virginia 5-1 at Baujan Field
Gabriel Ward | Contributing Writer
DAYTON, Ohio – The University of Dayton Men’s Soccer Team (6-2-3) shocked the top-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers (8-1-3) with a 5-1 victory in front of 567 fans at Baujan Field on Tuesday. It was the Flyers’ first-ever victory over a team ranked number one.
The match was never particularly close, in what was the final non-conference matchup for both squads. The Mountaineers were able to get off the first six shots of the match. But in the 17th minute, on Dayton’s first shot of the game, midfielder Joseph Melto Quiah was able to push it past the goalkeeper and into the back of the net to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead.
After the first goal, it did not take long for Dayton to find a second. In the 22nd minute, and on only their second shot of the game, midfielder Martin Bakken was able to put a bouncing ball into the net to extend the Flyers’ lead to two.
The Flyers dominated the entire game and kept West Virginia goalkeeper Marc Bonnaire busy as Dayton outshot the Mountaineers 16-10, with the Flyers putting eleven of their shots on goal compared to West Virginia’s four.
Despite it being a physical first half with ten combined fouls, the first booking would not come until the 34th minute, when Dayton forward Felix Buabeng picked up a yellow card.
However, Buabeng did not allow the card to slow him down. The Flyers kept pushing and eventually scored a third first-half goal when Buabeng took a shot from just inside the box and found the bottom left corner, extending the Dayton lead to 3-0. That scoreline held through the break.
The Flyers’ three first-half goals were already more than West Virginia had given up in a match all year, but Dayton did not take its foot off the gas.
In the 51st minute, Bonnaire would commit a foul in the box, giving the Flyers a chance from the spot. Melto Quiah would be the Flyer tasked with taking the penalty, and he delivered with a perfect shot to the bottom left corner, extending the Dayton lead to 4-0 and grabbing himself his second goal of the match and sixth on the season.
The game would start to get chippy as yellow cards were given to Melto Quiah in the 51st minute and West Virginia’s Ryan Baer in the 53rd minute. After the bookings, there would be two more fouls on Dayton and one on West Virginia from the 56th to the 60th minute, and then another yellow card to West Virginia’s Barrett Saul in the 63rd minute.
In the 67th minute, West Virginia would finally break through, when midfielder Max Trethewey was able to send in a perfect cross to the Mountaineers’ second-leading goalscorer, Marcus Caldeira, who was able to deliver a header to make the score 4-1.
The Flyers would cap off their shocking upset in the 84th minute when forward Cooper Lijewski found a loose ball from a corner kick and slotted it home to bring the score to 5-1, a scoreline that would hold for the remainder of the match.
The Flyers will return to Atlantic-10 play on Oct. 19, when they will travel to St. Bonaventure, N.Y., to take on the Bonnies at noon.
Dayton will come back to Baujan Field on Nov. 2 when they host the 10-time national champions Saint Louis University Billikens in their final regular season match.