Oct. 28, 2007

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DAYTON, Ohio - For most of the season the Dayton Flyers defense has been steady. On Sunday the UD defense played a spectacular game.

The Dayton defense held the Owls to one shot on goal and earned its fourth shutout of the season as the Flyers picked up a up a 1-0 victory.

"It was the first shutout in our conference so that was good," said sophomore Randy Dennis. "We worked on some different things this weekend dropping some guys back and making it easier to past to our midfielders. They attacked a lot and had their numbers in. They wanted it too because they needed the win."

A second half goal by sophomore Jeff Popella was just enough as Dayton improved to 9-4-2 overall, 3-3-0 in the Atlantic 10 and 6-0-0 at home. The Flyers have won three of its last four.

"Getting two victories this weekend is huge for us," head coach Dennis Currier said. "Temple is a good team and we knew that coming in they had some bad breaks in the A-10. Defensively they are very solid and for us it was just about breaking them down. I thought we broke them down a lot better in the second half and I thought Simeon Zaprianov and Popella did a great job up top."

The first half wasn't too eventful as Dayton had the only quality scoring chance when Zaprianov had a shot that was saved from 10 yards out.

But in the second half the Flyers began to open up on the offensive end. Dayton finally capitalized when Popella converted a shot from 10 yards out to put UD ahead 1-0. Junior Joe Olwig and Zaprianov picked up the assists.

"Olwig played the ball over to Mony and two defenders closed on him," said Popella. "He played the ball at the perfect time just outside of the six and just shot it near post."

Popella has started to find his scoring touch tallying a goal in three of his last four games. The sophomore striker also has three game-winning goals on the season, tops on the team thanks in part to the Flyers doing a much better job of ball control.

"I think we controlled the ball well today and kept the ball on the ground. That's where we got our success today passing the ball through the midfield," Popella said.

The UD defense continued to shine in the closing minutes stopping a strong Temple rally with less than two minutes remaining. Dayton's defense cleared the ball out of its own zone twice and dropped Temple to 4-8-2 overall and 0-4-1 in the Atlantic 10.

"The defensive clearances were a lot better today and we talked before the game about playing safe and make sure our distribution coming out of the back is very strong," Currier said. "I think they did that well. Defensively it takes everybody on the field to play great and our midfielders did a good job as well."

The Flyers look to continue its strong play at Baujan Field when UD will host the Xavier Musketeers on Saturday beginning at 7 p.m. ET.