Coach Schureck and his staff said goodbye of sorts to seven seniors Sunday afternoon at Baujan Field in what was their final home game of their careers. Denny Clanton, Dan Thomas, Joe Hall, Jim Graham, Jason Kurdziel, Christian Porto, and Jeff Suzuki. All seven started the match and helped Dayton earn a relatively easy 3-1 victory over the St. Bonaventure Bonnies in front of 508 fans. With the win, Dayton clinches a spot in the Atlantic-10 postseason tournament after a one-year absence while improving their overall record to 11-4-2 (6-3-1). The Bonnies fall to 2-14-1 (1-9-0).

The Flyers got off to a good start on Senior Day and it was especially sweet for senior defender/forward Jim Graham. Just eight minutes into the match Graham took a Tye Stebbins cross from the right side and tattooed it off the fly from 10yds out that gave Bonnie GK Mike Krupka no chance at a save. It was Graham’s first career goal and was very reminiscent of last year’s Senior Day when senior Michael Morales scratched for the first time in his Flyer career.

With Dayton up a goal, the Flyers were looking for a second. St. Bonaventure had trouble containing Dayton’s speed at times but what the Bonnies lacked most was organization. While they played hard, everyone wasn’t on the same page and the Flyers took advantage of it with strong possession and scoring opportunities in the SBU half of the field. Having junior Tye Stebbins in the midfield once again was a major reason why. On Friday night Stebbins was given the task of filling in for sweeper Denny Clanton in the back line and although he did well, Stebbins is at his best when the ball is at his feet, not clearing balls, winning defensive headers, and tracking down forwards near the endline.

With SBU in trouble from the start and already down a goal, another goal from Dayton would probably stick a fork in things. Bona came into the match with just two victories to their credit and it rarely takes much to put a struggling team away once they smell another loss forthcoming. Tye Stebbins cashed in for the second goal of the match in the 21st minute when he nailed a shot from 12yds out to give UD a 2-0 lead. The Bonnies were pretty much toast. Or were they?

The Bonnies had little offensive punch but what they did have was one striker with extreme speed who was obviously burdened with carrying most of the load. At times Geron DuPorte got loose flying down the sidelines with the ball and had a couple decent chances to put a balls past Flyer GK Jason Kurdziel. DuPorte’s luck hit the jackpot in the 24th minute when SBU was awarded a free kick from 25yds out on the left side. DuPorte connected on a low rocket to the far post in the 24th minute that missed everyone in the box and bounced off the far post and in for the first Bonnie goal of the game. With the score now 2-1, things were now interesting again even though the Flyers had controlled 75% of the play through the first 25 minutes. The Flyers responded well however and maintained their overall dominance. It was only a matter of time before UD hit paydirt again.

That happened in the 32nd minute of the first half when Stebbins knocked in his second goal of the game after some fancy footwork in the box turned a loose ball into a goal after juking out the goalkeeper attempting to dive for the ball. Freshman Clint Loughner, seeing action for the first time in several games, was credited with an assist — his first point as a Flyer.

With UD up 3-1 at the half, the match appeared in safe hands. And it was. The second half was played without much drama. While outshooting SBU 19-6 in the first half, UD would add to that margin in the second half by outshooting the Bonnies 15-7 for a total margin of 34-13. Not all of those were quality shots as evidenced by Krupka’s low number of saves (6), but Dayton had a lot of pressure and made SBU work hard to avoid more trouble. By the end of the match, Dayton had an 11-2 advantage in corner kicks as well. The second half was uneventful and neither side seemed to be pushing things as hard as they could. The Flyers knew they were going to win and the Bonnies knew they were staring loss number 14 square in the face. And there was no need for the services of injured players Nate Darr, Dasan Robinson, George Nanchoff, and Chris Rolfe.

That’s going to change however as the A-10 tournament approached in two weeks. Dayton travels to Xavier on Saturday for the final regular season match of the year. Dayton dropped a poorly-played match one year ago to the Muskies at Baujan Field and with XU clearly out of the running for an A-10 tourney birth, it goes without saying that they will be looking to spoil Dayton’s seeding. The Muskies have big-game potential in them — they beat Rhode Island and UMass and lost 1-0 to league-leading Richmond. Can the coaching staff afford to hold out the injured starters another week and hope the rust isn’t there for the A-10 Tourney, or do they need a warm-up match like Xavier to get their wind back and sharpen up? We’ll know in good time. As of this writing, Dayton is currently the #4 seed and cannot slide to 5th, but with a little help could move up to third. With a healthy team, Dayton has to be one of the favorites in the tournament, even without the first round bye.

Photos from Sunday’s game can be seen in the mens soccer forum on the UDPride message board.