Dayton men’s soccer team has a ‘big target’ on its back after historic season

“It certainly puts you in a different light,” Currier said Monday. “We got into a lot of recruiting battles that we probably wouldn’t have been in before.”

Dayton, ranked 12th in the nation in the United Soccer Coaches preseason poll, opens the 2025 season at 7 p.m. Thursday against Detroit Mercy at Baujan Field. A noon game Sunday at 20th-ranked Western Michigan follows.

“We have some experience coming back,” Currier said. “That’s important. But we also lost four of maybe the most crucial guys.”

The losses include the Atlantic 10 Conference Defender of the Year, Hjalti Sigurdsson, Joseph Melto Quiah, defender Geni Kanyane and starting goalkeeper Dario Caetano. Quiah and Kanyane were both picked in the third round of the Major League Soccer SuperDraft in December.

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

The top returners are: junior midfielder Martin Bakken, who led the team with nine goals; sophomore forward Andrew Armstrong, the A-10 Rookie of the Year; junior midfielders Miles Bonham and Brandon Seel, both second-team A-10 selections; and redshirt senior forward Ethan Sassine, one of five players with eight or more goals last season.

“The guys that are returning have been in some huge games,” Currier said, “and those are the guys that are going to have to lead the way and teach the newcomers what the expectations are. Overall, it’s been a good preseason. We’re getting closer to putting things together and starting to do what we want to do, which is playing on the front foot, scoring a lot of goals and just kind of smothering opponents.”

This will be Currier’s 21st season as Dayton head coach. The Flyers have won four A-10 tournament championships during his tenure. They repeated as champions for the first time last year, building on an unexpected run to the title as the No. 6 seed in 2023. No team has won three straight A-10 tournament championships since Penn State (1987-89).

Dayton was named the A-10 preseason favorite last week, receiving eight of 13 first-place votes.

“We know that we’ve got a big target on our back this year,” Currier said.

Five Flyers were named to the A-10 preseason team: Bakken; Bonham; Sassine; Armstrong; and defender Paul Yeboah, who started 14 games last season.

Among Dayton’s top newcomers are:

• Dren Dobruna, a sophomore defender who played at Siena last season and won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year award.

• Maxim Scordo, a freshman forward from Denver.

• Two freshmen from Iceland: forward Haukur Brink; and defender Kristjan Frostason.

• Freshman defender Mikkel Madsen, of Denmark.

• And freshman defender Farouq Ogundare, of Nigeria.

“He has the chance to be one of the top stars in college soccer,” Currier said. “He’s still very young.”

Dayton did not lose any players to the transfer portal this year. Last year, it lost Casper Svendby to Pittsburgh, and he was named the Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2024. Two years ago, Dayton lost midfielder Michael Adedokun to Ohio State, and he won the Hermann Trophy in 2024 as the top men’s soccer player in the United States.

Currier doesn’t worry too much about the portal.

“I’ve done this for so many years that if somebody decides that they’re going to leave, you just can’t talk them into coming back,” he said. “They’ve thought about it. They’ve talked to their parents. They’ve talked to their friends. They’ve just decided they’re going to leave.

“What we do is we just try to put out the best product we can. We try to treat them the right way. We have a great budget. The way we travel, all the little things that we do, you hope that’s enough for them. You also have to understand they all have their different paths. There are kids that leave because they’re homesick or their girlfriend’s at another school. There’s so many reasons that kids can leave.”