Dayton Wins its First Game of the Season Over Duquesne 4-2

Dayton scores 4 unanswered goals in the second half in victory

PITTSBURGH – Dealing with adversity can be a struggle at times as it forces people to learn how to overcome certain obstacles. Dayton men’s soccer team had a problem, but eventually they fixed it.

Today, the Dayton Flyers (1-3, 1-1 A-10) went on the road to defeat the Duquesne Dukes (1-2, 1-1) 4-2 in an A-10 conference game at Arthur J. Rooney Athletic Field. The win for the Dayton was their first of the season snapping a three-game losing streak.

The Dukes started off well as Logan Muck scored the first goal of the game 0:49 into the game. For Muck, the goal was his first as a Duke as he played the last two seasons of collegiate soccer at the University of Evansville, located in Indiana. Ryan Landry was credited with the assist on Muck’s goal.

In the first half, the Flyers were missing opportunities to score, and Michael Adedokun was charged with a yellow card after he hit Duquesne’s Torge Witteborg in the shin. Even after Dayton goalie Mark Kouadio gave up the first goal, he managed to continue to make important saves in the game to keep hope alive for the Flyers.

Duquesne’s Maxi Hopfer tried extending the lead for Dukes at the 30:55 mark, but when he shot the ball, Kouadio jump high above the crossbar to the deflect it, and then he jumped back up in the air to hit the ball over the crossbar of his own goal to make sure the Dukes did not have a chance to get possession of the ball.

At the end of the first half, the Flyers had fewer assists, shots on goals, corner kicks, and yellow cards than Duquesne. At halftime, Dayton knew they were being outplayed, and they knew if they wanted to win the game that they had to overcome the adversity of trailing 1-0.

At the 55:16 mark of the game, Josh Darius passed the ball to Kingsford Adjei, and Adjei shot the ball right through the hands of Dukes goalie Domenic Nascimben, who recorded a season-high 7 saves, and into the net tying the game at 1.

Right after the goal, Duquesne’s Rodrigo Albayeros got penalized with a yellow card, and that gave Dayton some momentum.

Dayton’s Toluwalase Oladeinbo headed the ball that hit the crossbar at the 71:08 mark, and after that near goal, the Flyers knew that they were getting opportunities, the only thing that they had to do now was capitalize. After the missed attempt by Oladeinbo, Duquesne’s Eric Zech was penalized with a yellow card, and the misfortunes for Duquesne continued.

At the 76:41 mark, Jonas Fjeldberg gave the Flyers a 2-1 lead when he shot the ball, and it skipped right over Nascimben.

It got worst for the Dukes after that.

Right after Fjeldberg scored, 47 seconds later, Adjei scored his second goal of the game shooting low to the right side of the net giving the Flyers a 3-1 lead. Then, less than two minutes later, at the 78:26 mark, Oladeinbo scored also low to the right side of the net giving the Flyers a 4-1 lead. Oladeinbo got his revenge from earlier in the second half, when he hit the crossbar.

For Dayton scoring four unanswered goals, with three of them being scored in a span of 2:22 was what the Flyers needed to do to comeback and win.

Nate Dragisich scored the other goal for the Dukes on a penalty kick with 0:38 left in the game. In this game, Duquesne scored both of its goals in the first minute, and final minute of the game. It’s kind of ironic to say the least.

After the win for the Flyers, they are now 14-7-1 all-time against Duquesne. Also, the win for Kouadio, who recorded a season-high 10 saves, was his first as a goalkeeper in his collegiate career.

When it looked like the Dukes had more momentum going their way in the game, Dayton never gave up, and they dealt with the adversity present in front of them, which resulted in a win.