May 25, 2005

DAYTON - Dayton rallied from a five-run deficit to earn its first Atlantic10 Tournament win in school history, 8-5 over Duquesne in the opening game of the 2005 A-10 Baseball Championship Wednesday afternoon in front of 1,259 fans at Fifth Third Field.

The win lifts UD school best record to 35-21 and puts the fourth-seeded Flyers into the second day of the tournament against Top-seed Rhode Island, Thursday at noon.

"The first two years we went to the [Atlantic 10] Tournament, Dayton had never been there so I think we spun our wheels just trying to get there. This team's been a lot different," said Flyers head coach Tony Vittorio.

"I have a lot of confidence in this group. I think we have a pretty decently talented team that gets some things done."

Junior Craig Stammen overcame early troubles to earn his ninth win of the season and ninth complete game performance. Stammen gave up five runs, including four in the first inning, on 10 hits while striking out seven batters. He now has 185 which made him the all-time leader in UD program history.

"I didn't think after the first inning that it was going to happen but once that got over with, I knew I just had to bear down," said Stammen.

"The offense came through for me and I kind of settled in and got the ball down a little bit more at the end of the game and that helped."

Dayton out hit Duquesne 12-10 with the big blast coming off the bat of senior Aaron Hepner in the fourth inning. He was 1-for-3 with a three-run home run down the left field line.

Two Flyers has multi-hit games including Joe McSoley who was 3-for-5 with two RBI and two runs scored. William Benoit was also 2-for-3 with a run scored for UD.

Michael Massa, Todd Presar and Jeff Mercer each singled and scored while Bobby Getty had an RBI and Roberto Ramos scored as a pinch runner for Dayton which improved to 24-3 when scoring more than five runs.

After UD Head Coach Brian Gregory threw out the ceremonial first pitch, the rest of the first inning belonged to Duquesne. The Dukes scored four runs on five hits and two Flyer errors while sending nine batters to the plate.

Duquesne added another run in the top of the third to take a 5-0 advantage before Dayton stopped the charge with a pair of ground outs. The Flyers came back in the bottom of the frame and took advantage of a Duquesne fielding error that allowed Second Team All A-10 pick Massa to reach as a leadoff batter. First Team All-Conference selection Galen Schumm then lined a single to right center to move Massa to third. Getty followed with a hard ground ball up the middle, which looked like a double play, but the Dukes' infielder bobbled the relay throw to give Getty an RBI and Massa the first Flyer run scored of the contest. After another ground out, Brandon Godzik drove a deep fly ball to right field which was caught against the wall to end the inning, but gave UD momentum down just 5-1 after three innings.

McSoley and Mercer got things started with one-out singles in the fourth for the Flyers. Hepner followed with a three-run blast down the left field line to pull UD within a run at 5-4.

Dayton would even the score in the fifth after Benoit ledoff with a single followed by a two-out RBI single up the middle by McSoley to make the score 5-5 after the fifth inning.

UD took control in the seventh with three runs on four hits. Benoit got things started again with a single through the left side. Godzik, Chandler and McSoley each followed with singles, including an RBI base hits by Chandler and McSoley to give the Flyers the lead. Dayton added another run on a wild pitch to take an 8-5 lead after seven innings.

The Flyers allowed just two base runners over the final two innings as they clinched their first A-10 Tourney win in program history and their ninth victory in their last 10 games overall this season.