Another opportunity to pad the postseason resume’ fell through the cracks Tuesday night at Baujan Field as the Dayton Flyers battled to a 2-2 double overtime draw against the Western Michigan Broncos. In a rare mid-week, late-season, non-conference matchup, UD held a 2-1 lead with 20 minutes remaining but couldn’t make it hold as a bad bounce cost Head Coach Dennis Currier’s team the victory and settles their record at 6-4-5 (2-1-2). The Broncos board the bus back to Kalamazoo at 8-4-4 (2-0-1).

The match started poorly for the Flyers as a defensive miscue surrendered possession to WMU and allowed the Broncos to encroach upon the Dayton goal box with only GK Chris Froschauer to beat. Nick Wysong finished off the gift and put the roadies ahead 1-0 after just two minutes of play.

Over the next 40 minutes, both teams battled intensely. The run of play slightly favored WMU as they showcased a half-step of quicker anticipation to loose balls — alongside excellent physicality that knocked UD off of several balls in the middle third of the pitch. The Flyers were never outclassed however and had their own extended periods of quality play. As the first half continued, the physical play escalated as well with both teams challenging hard for 50/50 balls and racking up fouls from the head referee. With so many fouls, the ebb and flow of the game was staccato and intermittent at best. Like a couple heavyweight boxers throwing haymakers, the product ended up being the mostly hotly-contested half of the home schedule thus far.

Both defenses did a solid job of eliminating dangerous balls in the box with timely clears or physical tackles along the flanks. Offensively, that limited the opposing offenses to few quality looks at the net, culminating in a handful of half-chances that never materialized into something greater. As the match wore on, UD upped their physicality and found better success when challenging loose balls.

At the half, the Flyers still trailed 1-0 but held a 7-5 edge in shots. The Broncos took the lone corner kick.

The second half started where the first half ended — two teams hammering each other like battering rams from physical play and high-intensity hustle. Only a soft goal courtesy of a Flyer defensive gaff proved to be the difference.

The tables turned in the 57th minute however when the Flyers were on the receiving end of a break of their own, squibbing a low ball into the left side of the goal box after beating a Bronco defender baseline. The ball ricocheted off a WMU defender and trickled behind the goalkeeper at the near post to tie the match at 1-1. The equalizer was officially credited as an own-goal.

Two strange and gift-like goals turned the match into a 30-minute race to break the deadlock. Both teams fought hard all over the pitch to gain an advantage, forcing the referee to blow his whistle in perpetuity. The dead balls allowed both sides to place free kicks up-field and directly into the opposing goal boxes — with WMU earning a few more opportunities because of the accumulating Dayton fouls. Time and again however, the back lines for both teams turned the chances away. WMU’s best chances came on wall passes, while Dayton found better luck using long balls and weak-side service to players poaching into free space. Nonetheless, the score remained unchanged.

Amass Amankona broke the tie in the 71st minute on a PK that pinged the lower left post and into the net — beating the WMU goalkeeper who guessed right but just missed on the save. The 2-1 Flyer advantage was courtesy of a WMU foul in the box that took out a UD player pushing the ball past the last defender and heading directly on goal. The referee pointed to the spot and Amankona finished the rest.

Three goals from three unconventional circumstances were the only scoring thus far, but the stranger-than-fiction storyline wasn’t quite finished.

Nursing a 2-1 lead into the last 15 minutes of the match, Dayton was once again in a familiar position of holding a late lead against a quality side and looking to shut the door completely to preserve the win. Those past matches however all ended in frustration, surrendering late goals — some of them in the last minute of play — to steal certain victories away and force the Flyers to embrace eventual 2OT draws.

The bad late-game karma struck again however, this time on the goofiest goal of the night. Hitting a relatively benign shot on goal to the near post from 15yds out, the Bronco worm-burner took a funny hop just as GK Chris Froschauer was on his knees and ready to scoop it up, bouncing past him and into the open net to tie the match at 2-2 in the 79th minute.

With neither side earning a legitimately respectful goal in the run of play, the scoring in the match almost overshadowed what ultimately ended up an entertaining game of two evenly-matched teams battling hard for a quality win — something hard to come by at times this late in the year. Both sides couldn’t punch it in during the waning moments of regulation and the teams took a short break before heading to sudden death overtime.

Second half stats favored WMU in shots 7-5 while corner kicks were 2-2.

The Flyers out-shot the Broncos 3-2 in a pair of 10-minute OTs along with earning the lone corner kick of extra time, but neither side could put it in the back of the net and the match ended up a 2-2 draw. Dayton’s best chance came on a late header in the box; well-struck but just wide of the far post.

Dayton is literally 15 minutes of soccer away from being one of the Top-15 teams in the country and an NCAA at-large tournament shoo-in. But the margins in D-I college soccer are razor thin and UD’s inability to close the deal when holding late-game leads in three or four critical matches against NCAA caliber teams is the difference in the season thus far. The Flyers’ RPI is in the low 40s, but it’s looking like UD has exhausted their at-large chances and must win the A10 tournament to punch their ticket to the Big Dance.

Dayton finishes the home schedule with a match against Fordham on Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm.