This all happened in the penalty box Friday at Baujan Field as Armstrong and other members of the Dayton men’s soccer team waited for a corner kick. Armstrong’s defender recovered in time to get back into position, but ball flew over the pack of players waiting in front of the net and went right to Armstrong, who headed the ball just inside the post for a goal with 3 minutes, 20 seconds remaining.
It was a long-awaited goal for Dayton, which had attacked the Davidson defense all night without success, and it led to a 1-0 victory in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament.
“It was just a dogfight in that box,” said Armstrong, a forward from Pompton Lakes, N.J., “but I was just finding the space to get the extra header and yelling out to my teammate, who fortunately did leave it to me. It was just chaos. I was lucky enough to get my head on it.”
No. 2 seed Dayton (11-2-3) beat No. 7 seed Davidson (6-7-5) for the second time in two weeks. The Flyers won the regular-season matchup 5-1 on Oct. 26 at Davidson.
Playing its first game as the No. 5 team in the United Soccer Coaches poll, Dayton took the first step toward winning the A-10 tournament for the second straight year and securing a NCAA tournament berth. The Flyers are in a good position for an at-large berth if they fall short of the championship, ranking 12th in the RPI.
“You never want to leave it in the committee’s hands,” coach Dennis Currier said, “but we built an incredible resume with top-10 teams, top-50 teams. Our RPI is great. Our ranking’s great. So it’s a great resume, but you want to clinch it with an automatic bid. That’s our goal here.”
Dayton will play another home game in the semifinals Wednesday. The time and opponent will be announced after the other quarterfinal games Saturday. The tournament is reseeded after the quarterfinal games.
No. 1 seed George Mason (12-3-1) beat No. 8 La Salle 2-0 in the other quarterfinal game Friday. No. 6 Saint Louis (7-3-7) plays at No. 3 Saint Joseph’s (4-12-1) at 1 p.m. Saturday. No. 5 Fordham (7-4-5) plays at No. 4 Duquesne (11-3-2) at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Dayton has won six straight games. It has climbed 10 spots in the United Soccer Coaches poll two weeks in a row, reaching the highest ranking in program history.
Dayton dominated the game against Davidson but could not take advantage of numerous shots until Armstrong scored.
Dayton took 21 shots to Davidson’s two and had 10 shots on goal to zero by Davidson.
“We told them at halftime you just have to have composure,” Currier said. “You’ve got to keep going at it. You’ve got to believe in the system, and we’ll find a goal eventually. This one was later than we wanted, but a goal is a goal. It’s been a historical season. We want to continue that and see if we can’t bring home a championship here.”
Armstrong is now tied with sophomore midfielder Martin Bakken, of Norway, for the team lead with eight goals. Armstrong has been named the A-10 Rookie of the Week three times.
Armstrong had just entered the game as a substitute when he scored.
“I really trust Andrew,” Currier said. “I said, ‘Hey, go in there and get the game winner.’ He certainly did that. Andrew’s had a really incredible freshman year. We know he’s dangerous.”
On a busy Friday night at UD, there were two other games:
• The 19th-ranked Dayton volleyball team (25-1, 15-0) beat Davidson 25-12, 25-12, 25-16 in the first of two matchups this weekend. Dayton has won 18 matches in a row this season and 35 A-10 matches in a row.
It was the 400th career victory at Dayton for coach Tim Horsmon, who has 576 total victories in his career.
• The Dayton women’s basketball team beat Delaware State 79-44 at UD Arena, improving to 2-0.
Ivy Wolf scored 22 points on 8-of-10 shooting. Shantavia Dawkins scored 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
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