The Dayton Flyers reached the .500 mark on the season once again with a 4-0 trouncing of the St. Joseph’s Hawks Sunday afternoon at Baujan Field before 303 fans. Continuing where they left off on Friday, UD remains a menace at home to visiting teams and but for a freak loss to LaSalle, would be gearing up for a perfect home record next Sunday against Xavier in the regular season finale. Sunday Isename scored twice – his third and fourth goals of the weekend – to lead Dayton past the Hawks. The Flyers improve to 9-9-1 (4-6) while SJU drops to 8-9-0 (3-7).

While UD saw its postseason fortunes slide away during the road portion of the Atlantic-10 schedule, the Flyers have been downright overpowering at home and nothing changed on Sunday as St. Joseph’s took it on the chin for 90 minutes.

It didn’t take very long for Dayton to take the lead. Sunday Isename scored his third goal of the weekend — his third header — with a nifty flick off a Christian Porto cross in the 8th minute. The Flyers pushed forward and put the Hawks back on their heels for the remainder of the half. Dayton had several great chances to add to the lead, but a few unlucky touches near the Hawk goal mouth kept things at 1-0 midway through the first half. Isename wasn’t done however and hit paydirt for the second time in the half and fourth time of the weekend in the 32nd minute by putting away a rebound in the Hawk box. Down 2-0, SJU was in serious trouble and Flyer hustle in the midfield gave them fits. Unable to secure the ball and develop any sort of sustained possession, the Hawks relegated themselves to kick and run on many occasions, but it got them nowhere as the Dayton defense cleaned up on the long balls quite easily. In fact, the Hawks had trouble beating the UD defense on the ground too as the foursome of Clanton, Darr, Nsien, and Robinson prove to be very difficult to beat. The Flyers outshot St. Joseph’s 18-5 in the first half and held a 4-0 advantage in corner kicks.

The second half was all Dayton too, but that was no surprise considering the Flyers haven’t fought halftime letdowns at home all season. The UD midfield worked extremely hard – especially in the second half – to win possession or steal possession and force the Hawks to chase. Sophomore midfielder Tye Stebbins had perhaps his best home game of the year, covering a lot of ground and pushing forward into open space on a number of occasions to engineer the Dayton offense. With Isename, Chris Rolfe, and Jesse Faily very effective up top, finding guys open to make things happen never seemed to be a problem. St. Joseph’s looked a step slow everywhere (or the Flyers a step fast) and it was only a matter of time before UD cashed in and added to their lead. Rolfe put Dayton up 3-0 in the 62nd minute on an improvisational toe flick that changed the trajectory of a Tye Stebbins cross, fooling Hawk GK Pat Mundy as he eased out of the box to make a play on it. Dayton had another goal taken away by an offside call, but 10 minutes after Rolfe’s score, the Flyers notched their fourth and final goal of the game as senior Michael Morales buried a rebound off a Faily shot from 15yds out for his first career goal. Morales, a 5-5 native of Puerto Rico who appeared in just three games heading into this year (including no action last season), found himself buried by his teammates shortly thereafter as the celebration began.

Though the Flyers didn’t score again, they had more chances and as the game wore on, Head Coach Dave Schureck substituted liberally and ended up playing nine players off the bench before all was said and done, including a couple former starters fans haven’t seen in a while — midfielder Scott Hinshaw and defender Dan Thomas. For the match, Dayton outshot SJU by a whopping 27-7 and had a 5-0 edge in corner kicks. GK Jason Kurdziel made just five saves on the day, none of them extraordinary. In most cases, Kurdziel steered balls away with a punch or clear and let the field players take care of the rest. St. Joseph’s had such a hard time winning possession that in those rare instances they did, Dayton was there to force a bad touch, clear the ball away, or steal possession altogether. Much of the credit goes to Stebbins, George Nanchoff, and Christian Porto.

The Flyers have one game remaining, a season-ending matchup against the Xavier Musketeers next Sunday evening at 6pm. The match follows the A-10 Womens Final hosted by UD that’s scheduled earlier in the day (1pm). Coach Schureck’s team has a chance to finish 2002 with a winning record, a nice accomplishment considering they started the conference season 0-5 and sat at an uninspiring 5-8-1 overall. At one point they were 5-3-1 so it’s been a hot and cold season. What’s been constant however is Dayton’s play at Baujan Field. UD has dominated every opponent on their home turf, perhaps no more so than the freaky 1-0 loss to LaSalle that’s turned out to be the lone home loss on the year thus far. Assuming nothing changes, expect Dayton to take care of business next Sunday on senior day.