The Dayton Flyers mens’s soccer team illustrated why the beautiful game is sometimes cruel and unusual, dominating from start to finish yet finding a way to lose 3-0 to Jacksonville University on Sunday afternoon at Baujan Field. UD surrendered two goals in the first half and another after intermission despite owning the stats and overall run of play. The Flyers and Dolphins even their records at 1-1-0.

After dispatching Detroit Mercy by a  5-1 score on Thursday evening, optimism was high as Dennis Currier’s squad opened Sunday’s UD soccer doubleheader against a foe coming of a 2-0 loss at #24 Louisville.  It seemed like another match favoring the Flyers and in the opening minutes nothing changed that opinion. Dayton dominated the run of play and created numerous dangerous scoring chances inside the attacking third, but couldn’t find the back of the net despite the consistent pressure against JU’s back line.  The persistence continued as UD won loose balls and pulled the trigger early and often, but too many were off target and non-threatening.

The Dolphins scored in the 18th and 30th minutes on their first two shots on goal of the match, proving high efficiency always beats scatter-gunned volume.  Counter-attacks proved the difference along with better poise inside the box to tuck balls in the net.  It was a disappointing circumstance, but the high-octane Flyer offense was still in it.  They came close on numerous occasions and the match could have easily ended 2-2 at intermission. Dayton hit the crossbar once and narrowly missed another golden opportunity earlier in the half. It was 45 minutes of bad luck, but another 45 minutes awaited to fix the problem.

Not much changed in the 2nd half as Dayton once again dominated on and off the ball, inside the circle and along the touch lines.  While UD continued to generated a bunch of shots in dangerous areas around the JU goal box, too many were off target and let the Dolphins off the hook.  Jacksonville added an insurance goal in the 70th minute to effectively ice the game. Dikko Adebayo earned a straight red card three minutes later to put UD down a man for the final 17 minutes of play. Dayton almost made it 3-1 in the closing minutes and once again couldn’t get anything past the JU goalkeeper.

Like Thursday’s drubbing of Detroit, there was much to like about Sunday’s performance just based on run of play, assertiveness, and ability to create dangerous scoring chances moving forward.  The soccer Gods were unforgiving however.  While the result was shocking and disappointing, the final score was not indicative of the product on the field. If UD can show some more patience and re-discover their finishing feet, there’s no reason to push the panic button just yet.

UD outshot JU 25-5 including a 12-1 domination in corner kicks. Shots on goal however were just 7-3 and Jax managed to put all of them away in clinical fashion. Dayton heads to the Wolstein Classic next weekend for a pair of matches against UNLV and SIU-Edwardsville.

 

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