DAYTON - The University of Dayton men's soccer team finishes up the regular season Wednesday on the road at Fordham at 7 p.m. with Atlantic 10 postseason hopes on the line.
SCOUTING THE FLYERS
The Flyers are 7-5-4 on the season and 3-3-1 in A-10 play. Dayton is also 2-3-1 on the road this year, but does have the longest win streak in the conference with a three-win stretch.
Head coach
Dennis Currier is in his 14th season at the helm of the Flyers, totaling 137 victories, the most in UD history. He leads a young squad this season with 15 newcomers and just two seniors.
The Flyers are scoring 1.13 goals per game and holding opponents to 0.88 goals each outing. Dayton is outshooting opposing teams 14.8 to 11.4 and has a 37.7 shots on goal percentage.
Leading the Flyers is sophomore
Jonas Fjeldberg, who has returned from injury and has a team-high four goals and one assist. Junior
Daniel Dos Santos has contributed one goal and three assists as well. Goalkeeper
Federico Barrios has seven shutouts and 48 saves in 15 starts.
SCOUTING THE OPPONENT
FORDHAM
Fordham is currently riding a two-game winning streak and boasts a 4-2-1 A-10 mark, sitting in third place in the conference standings. The Rams are also 8-3-4 overall this season. Head coach Jim McElderry is in his 16th year at Fordham.
The Rams average 1.47 goals each match and allows just 0.87 to opponents, despite being outshot in contests 12.7 to 11.7. Fordham has a 44 shots on goal percentage as well.
Reigning A-10 Player of the Week Janos Loebe leads Fordham with seven goals and 11 assists in 15 games while Sameer Fathazada and Joergen Oland have chipped in five goals each. Goalkeeper Rashid Nuhu has 50 saves and six shutouts on the year.
THE SERIES
Dayton and Fordham have played 20 times previously with the Flyers winning 12 times compared to the Rams' seven wins. Last season, Fordham eliminated UD at Baujan Field in the A-10 Quarterfinals, 3-2.
LAST OUTING
Dayton handed conference leaders VCU its first conference loss of the season with a 1-0 win at home on Saturday. Fjeldberg scored the game-winner in the 31st minute.
Fordham earned its second straight win with a 3-0 victory over La Salle on the road Saturday. The Rams struck twice in the first half and again in the second to cruise to an easy win over the Explorers.
HARRYSON NAMED A-10 ROOKIE OF THE WEEK
Freshman
Elias Harryson was named A-10 Rookie of the Week on Oct. 29 after helping the Flyers earn a shutout victory over conference leaders VCU the Saturday before. The Sweden native
TANESKI NAMED PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE
Junior
Rok Taneski was named to the A-10 preseason all-conference team after winning A-10 Midfielder of the Year accolades last season. The midfielder finished the year in the top three in the conference in goals (10), assists (7), and points (27).
PRESEASON
The Flyers worked through a number of different lineups in the preseason, giving multiple newcomers opportunities for playing time. Dayton tied Bowling Green 0-0 in the first exhibition game. The Flyers then hosted Ohio State at Baujan Field, a match that ended 0-0.
DAYTON PICKED TO FINISH 5TH
The Atlantic 10 Conference released its preseason poll and tabbed the Flyers to finish fifth in the league this season. With 117 points and one first-place vote, Dayton trailed preseason favorites Fordham (158), VCU (149), Massachusetts (144), and Rhode Island (124).
DAYTON WINS WOLSTEIN CLASSIC
The Flyers opened the season with a Wolstein Classic Championship, hosted at Ohio State University. Dayton drew with Hofstra 2-2 before defeating Furman 1-0 to win the title. All-Tournament team honors went to
Aidan Bean,
Isaac Mensah,
Trey Marchino, and
Elias Harryson.
FLYERS WIN DAYTON TOURNAMENT
Dayton won their own tournament and the second won in a row after clinching the 2018 Dayton Tournament title on Sept. 3 with a 0-0 draw against Marshall.
Jonas Fjeldberg earned MVP and all-tournament team honors while
Elias Harryson,
Federico Barrios, and
Agustin Volker were all-tournament as well.
FLYER SUCCESS
The Dayton men's program has an overall record of 494-419-90 and four NCAA Tournament appearances in its history. The Flyers are also 132-89-27 in the Atlantic 10 Conference and have six conference titles between the regular season and league tournament.
INTERNATIONAL FLAIR
The Dayton program has been known to recruit well outside of the U.S. and this year's team is no different. The Flyers have student-athletes from Ghana, Finland, Spain, Norway, Switzerland, Slovenia, Sweden, Chile, Germany, and Colombia totaling 12 international players. This is coming off the 2017 season in which the Flyers had 11 international players.
CURRIER'S IMPACT
The head coach of the Flyers has had success at every place he has coached.
Dennis Currier is in his 14th year at Dayton and holds a career record of 325-138-55 in 25 seasons and a 137-89-43 record with the Flyers. His career winning percentage of .690 ranks eighth in the nation amongst active coaches, ahead of programs like Notre Dame, Louisville, UCLA, Xavier, and Virginia.
UP NEXT
Depending on the results of Wednesday's games, Dayton has a chance to compete in the Atlantic 10 Tournament which begins Nov. 3-4 with campus site quarterfinals.
