Men’s soccer ended its regular season with wins over conference rivals VCU and Saint Louis, giving the Flyers a 5-1-2 conference record (10-2-3 overall) and a boost in the United Soccer Coaches rankings from No. 15 to No. 5. After the Saint Louis victory, coach Dennis Courier called it “probably our best performance.”
High praise since the Flyers on Oct. 15 beat then-No. 1 West Virginia 5-1. Even in their regular season losses, the Flyers peppered the goals with shots, outshooting the two teams that beat them 33-9 and 25-5.
The A-10 tournament started with UD outshooting Davidson 21-2 but not scoring the game’s decisive (and only) goal until the 87th minute. The next two games were also shutouts, 2-0 over Fordham and 3-0 over Saint Louis in the title game.
The A-10 champion Flyers received the No. 5 overall seed and a first-round bye in the NCAA Division I men’s soccer tournament. In their second-round game, the Flyers extended their postseason shutout streak, downing Michigan 2-0. The contest set a program attendance record with 2,513 fans filling Baujan Field.
The Flyers season came to an end with a round-of-16 loss to SMU, 3-1. Dayton finished with an overall record of 14-3-3; the 14 wins were the second-most in program history.
Graduate student Hjalti Sigurdsson was named A-10 Defensive Player of the Year while freshman Andrew Armstrong was named A-10 Rookie of the Year. They joined sophomore Martin Bakken and senior Joseph Melto Quiah on the All-Atlantic 10 First Team.
Ending the regular season unbeaten in its last nine games, the women soccer Flyers earned a No. 2 seed in the A-10 tournament with their 7-1-2 conference record. In the tournament, UD defeated VCU, 1-0, before succumbing 2-1 to Massachusetts on a goal scored in the 89th minute.
Postseason awards for the Flyers included four players (Diana Benigno, Noel Blain, Kyra Karfonta and Laney Smith) being named All-Conference First Team and two (Ella Raimondi and Batoul Reda) to the Second Team. Smith, Liv Grenda and Bre Mendoza made the All-Rookie Team; and Blain, Karfonta and Reda, the All-Academic Team.
For the second year in a row, the volleyball Flyers went 18-0 in the Atlantic 10 regular season, losing only two sets along the way and winning their fourth regular-season title in five years. Dayton has 38 consecutive A-10 regular season wins. The Flyers finished the regular season 28-1 with a No. 19 ranking in the American Volleyball Coaches Association.
On Nov. 8, coach Tim Horsman picked up his 400th win for the Flyers.
On Oct. 26, redshirt senior Lexie Almodovar (outside hitter) broke the UD kills record of 1,796 set by Faye Barhorst ’07.
Horsman was named A-10 Coach of the Year for the eighth time in his 16 years at UD. Almodovar was named A-10 Player of the Year for the second consecutive season.
Joining Almodovar on the A-10 First Team are senior Alyssa Miller (setter) and redshirt senior Alayna Yates (middle blocker). Junior Liana Sarkissian (middle blocker) made Second Team.
After a first-round bye in the A-10 tournament, UD continued its winning ways against Davidson; that win was followed by an upset loss to Loyola Chicago, which secured the A-10’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division I tournament. UD received an at-large bid and secured the Flyers’ 18th appearance in the NCAA tournament.
Roger Brown, who died in 1997, grew up on Prospect Place in Brooklyn. This summer the New York City borough named a part of the street Basketball Hall of Fame Roger Brown Way.
UD remembers him with the Roger Brown Residency in Social Justice, Writing and Sport. A drawing commemorating him hangs in Roesch Library. All, perhaps, are amends to a man who suffered.
He was never charged with any wrong-doing. But his having introduced a gambler to playground players (also never charged with anything) resulted in him, after his UD freshman year (1960-61), being banned by the NCAA and the NBA and dismissed from UD. He became a star for the ABA Indiana Pacers, and the NBA later paid him $2 million in damages. In 2013, Brown was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Sophomore Kyle McNally won the singles championship at the 2024 Atlantic 10 Masters Qualifier in late October. That win qualified him for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Masters, where he went 1-1, losing in the round of 16.
The men’s basketball team has sold out the UD Arena for the 2024-25 season. This means that every player on UD’s team will have played in the Arena only when it has been sold out. Last year’s capacity crowds put UD 20th in men’s college basketball total attendance.