DAYTON (OH) — The Dayton Flyers posted a school record 14th shutout but more importantly won their first A10 regular season title since 2004 with a convincing 3-0 slaughter of hapless Xavier — the ninth title for Head Coach Mike Tucker. The Flyers scored once in the first half and added a pair after intermission to finish the regular season undefeated for the first time in school history at 14-0-5 (10-0-1). The Musketeers end their season at 3-15-1 (2-8-1).

With so much riding on Saturday night’s match, Dayton had every reason to take advantage of the opportunity and salute their three seniors properly. Playing their last home matches of their career, Lauren MacCormick, Lauren Maybury, and Mandi Back were honored before the match and found their names in the starting 11. With Charlotte’s surprising tie against St. Louis on Friday night, UD suddenly went from playing for a shared title with the 49ers and the #2 tournament seed, to the outright title and top seed for the first time in five years. Once the match kicked off, it was apparent the only thing standing in the way might be UD’s overall level of play — the Musketeers were positively God awful and offered no resistance of their own.

The Flyers did pretty much everything they wanted in the first half and took advantage of a huge talent gap to carve up defenders and move the ball forward. Perhaps the least-talented team of a once-proud program, Xavier had neither the speed nor foot skills nor teamwork to adequately counter Dayton’s gameplan — which in some ways is a real shame considering XU and UD were once near equals in the conference. That’s not the case now and hasn’t been since Xavier’s last A10 title a decade ago.

Dayton ran rough-shot over the Xavier defense with quick play in the middle third of the field that set up golden opportunities on the flanks. When the flanks weren’t open, the middle was. Players used the dribble and excellent give-and-go’s to open up the field and threaten. Shots and crosses came with a flurry from all angles, but finishing inside the box was entirely sub-par. Shots from long range were the result of great looks, but the Flyers sprayed balls all over the Music Building. Creating quality scoring chances was never a problem, but sticking it in the net was.

The consistent pressure early on however eventually paid off as Mandi Back did all of the dirty work (but earned none of the credit in the boxscore) by getting forward with the dribble in the middle of the field and dishing a great pass to Kelly Blumenschein on the left wing. Blumenschein slotted a ball inside to Lauren MacCormick at the near post. MacCormick took the pass in stride and knocked a shot to the far post for the 1-0 lead in the 15th minute.

Over the next 30 minutes, the match was all Dayton. Mike Tucker’s team did everything they wanted short of setting the scoreboard on fire. The Muskies had little offense, but even less defense as they continued to show massive disorganization in the back line by letting UD attackers run loose. Dayton took advantage and displayed great foot skills to generate offense.

While the half ended at 1-0, Xavier was fortunate the score wasn’t 3-0. The Flyers outshot the Muskies 19-0 in the first 45 minutes and had a 5-2 edge in corner kicks. Outside of those corner kicks, Xavier never got the ball in the Dayton goal box.

The second half was much like the first. The Flyers needed another goal however to really feel good about their chances as one goal leads are one mistake away from frustrating double overtime ties. It took 15 minutes to find that cushion, but Back once again was the instigator with a nifty back heel to Blumenschein running toward the end line. Blumenschein turned the corner and crossed a ball into the mixer for Emily Kenyon to polish off for the 2-0 lead in the 60th minute. With the result now pretty much in the bag, the only thing left was wrapping up the blank sheet for a school record 14th time.

UD wasn’t done scoring however as Kelsey Owen added a third goal just four minutes later directly in front of the box for the 3-0 Flyer lead. Xavier, already completely overwhelmed, mailed it in after that with some light jogging.

The middle 20 minutes of the second half turned a bit ragged at times, but UD never lost the ability to get forward and threaten the Xavier goal mouth when they pursued the idea. A potful of great scoring chances came and went directly in front of the box, but UD couldn’t keep them on frame or polish away seemingly certain scores. By match end, Dayton had enough possession and quality scoring opportunities to win 8-0.

Final stats were embarrassingly one-sided. Dayton out-shot Xavier 36-2 and had 11 corners to three, though just 14 shots were on goal for the Flyers. Goalkeeper Katherine Boone did more work singing the pre-game Canadian and US national anthems than she did in goal. She finished without a save. The Flyers were whistled for just one foul in the game, perhaps the most evident indicator of a mis-match. Overall, UD played very well and knocked the ball around with great precision. If that precision ever defines the last 15 yards of offense, UD’s chances in the NCAAs improve exponentially.

Dayton finished the regular season with the #1 defense nationally in goals-against average. Yielding just five goals all year, the Flyer “D” is one of the best in program history. By virtue of winning the conference outright, they also boosted their NCAA at-large chances. Even with a semi-final loss in the A10 Tournament as the #1 seed, the Flyers can finish no worse than 14-1-5 with the best defense in college soccer. The committee would have to break all sorts of prior standards to leave Dayton out of the tournament. Reaching the finals would make Dayton’s bid all but punched, but winning the A10 tournament in Charlotte next week for the automatic bid is what players and coaches fully expect to accomplish.