Mackenzie Lutz, a fifth-year defender, has similar thoughts.
“Every year, we sit down at the beginning of the year and figure out what our values are, what our goals are,” Lutz said, “and this has been our goal for five years. I think we have the perfect, well-rounded team to reach these goals and be able to come home with an A-10 tournament championship.”
Dayton (12-1-5, 7-0-3), the No. 3 seed, starts its journey at 7 p.m. Friday. It plays No. 6 Saint Joseph’s (4-3-3, 4-8-6) at Baujan Field in the quarterfinals.
If the top seeds advance, Dayton would play No. 2 La Salle (10-5-3, 8-1-1) in the semifinals on Wednesday. The most likely opponent in the championship would be No. 1 Saint Louis (14-2-2, 9-0-1) which needs to beat No. 8 Virginia Commonwealth (5-8-4, 4-4-2) on Friday to earn the right play host to the semifinals and final.
Dayton enters the postseason with five straight victories. It did not lose a match in the A-10 for the first time since 2010 when it was 10-0-1.
“It’s certainly an accomplishment to have that level of consistency as you go through the course of the season,” coach Eric Golz said. “There are a lot of variables with travel and different facilities and different styles and types of opponents, and going through that, you have to find different ways to get results. I think we did a great job of doing that.”
Dayton has lost to Saint Louis in the A-10 tournament three straight seasons. It reached the A-10 championship game last season and lost 4-0. The Billikens beat the Flyers in the semifinals the two previous seasons, 4-2 in the 2021 fall season and 3-0 in the 2021 spring season, which was postponed from the fall of 2020 because of the pandemic.
Dayton lost 11 straight games against Saint Louis before earning a 1-1 tie in St. Louis on Sept. 24.
“Looking forward, it’s pretty exciting, knowing that at least in my years being here we had never got points against them,” fifth-year forward Alicia Donley said. “They’re a great team all around, but I think it does give us a lot of confidence because we’re able to see that we can play with a team like that.”
Saint Louis has won the tournament five straight years. Dayton last won the title in 2016. The Flyers own 10 championships. That’s more than any other program. Saint Louis has won the tournament seven times.
Laney Huber leads Dayton with seven goals. Madison Wilson and Noel Blain each have five. Beavercreek graduate Diana Benigno leads the team with six assists.
Dayton allowed two goals in 10 A-10 games. Only Saint Louis, which allowed one, did better. Batoul Reda tied for the A-10 lead with seven shutouts.
“I think we have a ton of experience,” Golz said. “You develop relationships and camaraderie, and you start to understand and know each other’s tendencies. As a group, we’ve done a tremendous job defensively in having a bit more urgency. We’ve done a great job of limiting opponents’ dangerous opportunities and producing shutouts. Everything we’ve done has really started with defending. We’ve been able to complement that with a diverse attack. We’ve developed some consistency because of our defending.”
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